GIFT   OF 
MICHAEL  REESE 


PART  I. 


PRODUCTION  AND  POPULATION. 


THE 


WAGES    QUESTION 


A  TREATISE  ON 


WAGES  AND  THE  WAGES  CLASS 


BY 


FEANCIS  A.  WALKEE,  M.A.,  PH.D. 

Professor  of  Political  Economy  and  History,  Sheffield 

Scientific  School  of  Yale  College. 

Late  Chief  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Statistics ;  Superintendent- 

of  the  Ninth  Census ;  Author  of  the  Statistical 

Atlas  of  the  United  States. 


NEW  YORK 
HEtfEY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

1886 


COPYRIGHT,  1876,  BY 
HENRY     HOLT. 


TROW'S 
PRINTING  AND  BOOKBINDING 

PRINTERS, 

205-213  East  \ztfi  St., 

NEW   YORK. 


CONTENTS. 


PAET  I.— PKODUCTION  AND  POPULATION. 

PAGB 

CHAPTER  I. 
WAGES  A  QUESTION  IN  THE  DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH 3 

CHAPTER  II. 
NOMINAL  AND  REAL  WAGES 12 

CHAPTER  III. 
NOMINAL  AND  REAL  COST  OF  LABOR 40 

CHAPTER  IV. 
THE  DEGRADATION  OF  LABOR 81 

CHAPTER   V. 
THE  LAW  OF  DIMINISHING  RETURNS 89 

CHAPTER   VI. 
MALTHUSIANISM  IN  WAGES — THE  LAW  OF  POPULATION 101 

CHAPTER   VII. 
NECESSARY  WAGES c 109 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  WAGES  OF  THE  LABORER  ARE  PAID  our  OF  THE  PRODUCT 
OF  HIS  INDUSTRY 138 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THERE  is  NO  WAGE-FUND  IRRESPECTIVE  OF  THE  NUMBER  AND 
INDUSTRIAL  QUALITY  OF  LABORERS 138 


CONTENTS. 
PART  IL— DISTRIBUTION. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  PROBLEM  OF   DISTRIBUTION — COMPETITION — THE  DIFFU- 
SION THEORY — THE  ECONOMICAL  HARMONIES 155 

CHAPTER  XL 
THE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR 174 

CHAPTER   XII. 
THE  WAGES  CLASS 206 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  CAPITALIST  CLASS — RETURNS  OF  CAPITAL— RENT  AND  IN- 
TEREST  224 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  EMPLOYING  CLASS — THE  ENTREPRENEUR  FUNCTION — THE 
PROFITS  OF  BUSINESS 243 

CHAPTER  XV. 
CO-OPERATION:  GETTING  RID  OF  THE  EMPLOYING  CLASS 262 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
THE  TRUE  WAGES  QUESTION 289 

CHAPTER  XVII. 
WHAT  MAY  PLACE  THE  WAGES  CLASS  AT  A  DISADVANTAGE 303 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

WHAT  MAY  HELP  THE  WAGES  CLASS  IN  ITS  COMPETITION  FOR 
THE  PRODUCT  OF  INDUSTRY 345 

CHAPTER  XIX. 

MAY  ANY  ADVANTAGE    BE    ACQUIRED  BY  THE  WAGES  CLASS 
THROUGH  STRIKES  OR  TRADES-UNIONS?.  .  .  385 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS 409 


THE  WAGES   QUESTION. 


CHAPTER   I. 

WAGES   A   QUESTION   IN  THE   DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH. 

ALL  the  questions  of  Political  Economy  may,  both  con- 
veniently and  appropriately,  be  grouped  under  four  titles, 
namely,  the  Production,  the  Distribution,  the  Exchange, 
and  the  Consumption  of  "Wealth.  All  wealth  has,  of  course, 
to  be  produced,  in  the  first  place  ;  and,  moreover,  it  is  pro- 
duced to  be  consumed,  and  for  this  end  alone.  Production 
and  Consumption,  therefore,  are  concerned  with  the  entire 
sum  of  wealth. 

All  wealth,   however,   is   not   exchanged1 ;   nor  is  all 

1  Not  only  is  not,  but  could  not  be.  I  say  this  to  meet  the  sugges- 
tion that  wealth,  though  actually  not  exchanged,  is  yet  always  sub- 
ject to  exchange  in  the  sense  that,  if  that  particular  form  of  wealth 
were  to  rise,  or  some  possible  substitute  for  it  in  use  were  to  fall 
markedly  in  price,  exchange  would  then  take  place,  so  that  such 
wealth  should  still  be  regarded  as  within  the  domain  of  exchange. 
But  the  state  of  facts  assumed  is  not  real.  No  matter  how  much  rice 
might  advance,  or  other  food  decline  in  price,  no  human  power  could 
take  all  the  crop  out  of  India  and  bring  back  a  food-substitute  to  the 
people,  even  were  it  Liebig's  extract.  The  whole  transportation  system 
of  India,  reinforced  by  the  revenues  of  the  British  Government,  broke 
down  under  the  effort,  in  1873-4,  to  distribute  to  the  people  of  certain 
districts  of  India  an  amount  of  rice  equivalent  to  but  a  small  portion 
of  their  usual  crop.  The  railroads  and  water-courses  of  the  United 
States  could  not  take  all  the  crops  from  the  farms  where  they  were 
raised. 


4  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

wealth  distributed.  Exchange  and  Distribution,  therefore, 
have  not  to  deal  with  the  entire  sum  of  wealth.  Nor  is 
that  part  of  wealth  which  is  excluded  from  Exchange 
identical  with  that  which  is  excluded  from  Distribution. 
Yast  amounts  of  wealth  are  exchanged  which  are  not 
distributed ;  vast  amounts  are  distributed  which  are  not 
exchanged. 

The  term  Production  of  Wealth  does  not  need,  for  our 
present  purposes,  to  be  defined. 

Consumption,  in  the  economical  sense,  is  the  use  of 
wealth.  The  actual  destruction  of  wealth  thereby  may  be 
total  or  partial,  rapid  or  slow,  according  to  the  nature  of 
the  material  and  the  object  to  which  it  is  directed.  The 
Consumption  begins  when  the  use  begins. 

"  That  almost  all  that  is  produced  is  destroyed,  is  true ; 
but  we  can  not  admit  that  it  is  produced  for  the  purpose  of 
being  destroyed.  It  is  produced  for  the  purpose  of  being 
made  use  of.  Its  destruction  is  an  incident  to  its  use  ;  not 
only  not  intended,  but,  as  far  as  possible,  avoided."1 

Wealth  is  exchanged,  in  the  meaning  of  the  political 
economist,  when  the  producer  and  the  consumer  of  it  are 
different  persons  ;  and  this,  whether  different  persons  have 
united  in  the  production  of  it  or  not. 

On  the  other  hand,  wealth  must  be  distributed  when  dif- 
ferent persons  (having  separate  legal  interests)  unite  in 
production;  and  this,  whether  the  product  is  to  be  ex- 
changed or  not. 

In  illustration  of  the  latter  case,  let  us  suppose  that  a 
dozen  persons  unite  in  a  fishing  venture,  on  equal  or  unequal 
shares.  Upon  their  return  the  product  is  distributed — that 
is,  divided  into  shares — among  them.  It  may  be  that  each 
of  the  producers  will  desire  all  the  fish  thus  falling  to  his 
share  for  his  own  immediate  consumption,  or  to  be  salted 
down  for  winter  use :  then  none  of  the  product  will  be 
exchanged,  though  all  of  it  has  been  subject  to  distribution. 

1  N.  W.  Senior,  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  54. 


DISTRIBUTION  vs.  EXCHANGE. 

Or,  again,  some  of  the  fishermen  may  desire  to  sell  the 
whole,  others  portions  only,  of  their  fish,  in  order  to  pur- 
chase articles  more  adapted  to  their  necessities :  then  we 
should  have  a  product  distributed  wholly  and  exchanged 
in  part. 

In  illustration  of  the  former  case,  let  us  take  a  small  far- 
mer, in  the  American  sense  of  that  term,1  a  peasant  pro- 
prietor in  the  phrase  of  Europe,  cultivating  his  land  by  his 
own  labor  and  that  of  his  minor  children,  and  perhaps  of 
his  wife  as  well.  The  product  here  is  not  distributed, 
because  it  is  all  his,2  the  children  and,  for  that  matter, 
the  wife,  having  no  separate  interests  legally,  and  the 
avails  of  their  labor  going  entire  to  the  father  and  husband. 
The  product,  therefore,  not  being  divisible  into  shares  rep- 
resenting the  claims  of  different  producers,  Distribution  is 
not  concerned  at  all  with  it ;  yet  a  part  of  it,  or  the  whole, 
may  be  exchanged.  If  the  farm  were  situated  in  one  of  our 
North-eastern  States,  and  the  product  were  chiefly  pork, 
corn,  potatoes,  and  garden  vegetables,  the  greater  part 
would  presumably  go  to  the  support  of  the  family,  and  but 
little  would  be  exchanged  for  other  articles.  If,  on  the 


1  "  When  we  speak  of  an  American  farmer,  we  generally  mean  one 
who  is  the  absolute  owner  of  the  land  and  every  thing  on  it." — T. 
Sedgwick,  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  54. 

a  It  may  be  said  that  the  father  and  husband  is  bound,  both  morally 
and  legally,  to  support  his  wife  and  children  out  of  the  product; 
and  that  the  subsistence  thus  derived  by  them  constitutes,  in  effect, 
their  wages.  To  this  it  will  be  sufficient  to  answer,  first,  that  the 
amount  and  character  of  that  subsistence  are  not  determined  by  con- 
tract between  the  parties,  as  in  the  case  of  what  may  properly  be 
called  wages,  but,  within  the  limits  of  the  mere  support  of  life,  are 
wholly  at  the  will  and  discretion  of  the  head  of  the  family,  having  no 
relation  to  what  other  persons,  rendering  the  same  character  and 
amount  of  service,  may  be  receiving  next  door ;  and,  second,  which 
settles  the  question,  that  the  head  of  the  family  is  equally  bound  to 
supply  subsistence  whether  the  wife  and  children  labor  or  not.  In  the 
case  of  children  too  young  to  labor,  or  of  an  invalid  wife,  the  obliga- 
tion of  the  head  of  the  family,  in  respect  to  subsistence,  is  precisely 
the  same. 


6  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

other  hand,  it  were  situated  in  one  of  the  Southern  sea- 
board  States,  and  the  product  were  cotton,  the  whole  of  it, 
though  not  distributed,  would  be  exchanged,  being  sold  to 
purchase  breadstuffs,  clothing,  West-India  goods,  etc. 

Both  the  Exchange  and  the  Distribution  of  Wealth  may 
be,  according  to  subject  and  circumstance,  either  simple 
and  obvious,  or  effected  through  most  complicated  and 
roundabout  processes.  Thus,  Exchange  may  take  place  in 
the  form  of  direct  barter  between  two  neighbors,  each 
giving  some  of  what  he  has  for  some  of  what  he  wants  ; 
or  it  may  involve  the  services  of  railroad,  steamship,  and 
ocean  telegraph,  with  the  mediation  of  importers,  jobbers, 
wholesalers,  and  retailers. 

In  like  manner,  Distribution  may  take  the  form  of  a  sim- 
ple division  of  a  product  into  two  or  three  equal  shares  ;  or 
it  may  involve  the  partition  of  the  annual  avails  of  a  factory 
among  five  hundred  persons  having  claims  upon  the  pro- 
duct, in  shares  varying  from  that  of  the  nine-year-old 
"  half-timer,"  working  under  the  Factory  acts,  to  that  of 
the  employer  or  the  owner  of  the  mill. 


The  distinction  which  I  have  sought  here  to  illustrate 
between  the  Exchange  and  the  Distribution  of  Wealth  is 
not  of  importance  in  the  general  theory  of  political  econ- 
omy only,  but  it  is  of  immediate  application  to  the  pro- 
blem of  Wages.  I  shall  seek  to  show1  that  the  fact  that 
a  large  portion  of  the  wealth  produced  is  not  distributed, 
while  yet  it  is  exchanged,  may  have  a  powerful  influence  on 
the  condition  of  those  classes  who  produce  distributed 
wealth.  In  my  opinion,  one  can  no  more  explain  all  the 
phenomena  of  distribution  without  reference  to  the  fact 
of  a  vast  undistributed  product,  than  one  could  explain  the 
movement  of  the  Gulf  Stream  without  reference  to  the 
colder  waters  through  which  and  over  which  it  flows. 

1  P.  220. 


WAGES  A   QUESTION  OF  DISTRIBUTION.  7 

These  brief  remarks  upon  the  scope  of  the  four  depart- 
ments of  Political  Economy  will  be  sufficiently  connected 
with  the  special  topic  of  this  work  by  the  remark  that  the 
question  of  Wages  is  a  question  in  the  Distribution  of 
Wealth. 

.  Now  it  is  clear  that  in  treating  of  the  Production  of 
Wealth  we  need  to  distinguish  industrial  functions  ;  and 
this  the  systematic  writers  have  done  with  great  success, 
and  we  have  the  laws  of  production  developed  early  in  the 
history  of  economical  investigation  with  great  complete- 
ness, little  being  left  to  be  added  by  later  writers. 

But  is  Tt  not  equally  clear  that  in  treating  of  the  Distri- 
bution of  Wealth,  we  need  to  distinguish  industrial  classes, 
recognizing  industrial  functions  only  as  they  serve  to 
characterize  such  classes  ?  This  the  systematic  writers  in 
economics  have  generally  failed  to  do ;  and  I  venture  to 
think  there  is  in  this  the  explanation  of  the  little  progress 
made  towards  the  settlement  of  the  important  questions  in 
this  department  of  the  science. 

Thus  the  political  economist,  having  shown,  by  careful 
analysis  and  apt  illustration,  the  parts  taken  in  production 
by  labor  and  by  capital,  carries  the  same  classification  for- 
ward into  Distribution,  and  speaks  of  the  shares  of  the  pro- 
duct received  by  labor  and  by  capital  respectively.  Now 
it  does  not  follow  at  all,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  because 
labor  and  capital  perform  parts  which  can  be  clearly  dis- 
tinguished in  production,  they  will  receive  separate  shares 
in  the  distribution  of  the  product.  That  will  depend  on 
whether  these  functions  are  or  are  not  united  in  the  same 
persons.  In  the  distribution  of  wealth,  shares  go  to  per- 
sons, who  may  be  grouped  in  larger  or  smaller  classes,  hav- 
ing less  or  more  in  common.  So  far  as  the  function  per- 
formed in  production  may  serve  to  characterize  the 
industrial  class,  so  far  the  function  may  be  recognized  in 
treating  the  questions  of  Distribution,  but  only  so  far. 
Beyond  this  it  becomes  as  idle  to  refer  in  distribution  to 
functions  performed  in  production  as  it  would  be  to  seek 


8  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

to  identify  the  members  of  the  body  engaged  in  a  certain 
kind  of  labor,  and  undertake  to  show  the  parts  of  the  pro- 
duce which  go  severally  to  the  hand,  the  eye,  and  the  foot. 
It  is  true  that  we  find  men  laboring,  generally  at  reduced 
wages,  who  have  lost  one  or  both  hands,  one  or  both  eyes, 
one  or  both  feet ;  and  the  economist  may,  by  judicious  in- 
quiry, satisfy  himself  how  much  these  unfortunate  persons 
lose  in  wages  by  their  several  infirmities.  But  this  would 
not  be  held  to  justify  the  extension  of  such  an  analysis  or 
dissection  to  the  vastly  greater  number  of  sound  laborers, 
and  the  erection  of  a  system  of  distribution  based  on  the 
respective  contributions  of  the  several  parts  of  the  undivi- 
ded body  to  the  work  of  production. 

Now,  as  matter  of  fact,  although  labor  is  a  function  in 
production  which  is  always  separable  in  idea  from  the  work 
of  capital,  the  instances  where  capital  is  furnished  by  one 
person  and  labor  performed  wholly  by  a  different  person 
are,  if  we  look  over  the  world,  fewer1  by  far  than  those  in 
which  capital  is  furnished  more  or  less  by  those  who  per- 
form the  labor,  and  in  which  labor  is  performed  more  or 
less  by  those  who  furnish  the  capital.  In  other  words,  it 
is  not  the  rule,  but  the  exception,  that  one  or  the  other  in- 
dustrial function  shall  characterize  the  industrial  person  or 
class,  just  as,  notwithstanding  all  the  effects  of  malicious 
and  accidental  injury,  the  number  of  those  who  preserve 
all  their  organs  and  members  exceeds  the  number  of  the 
maimed,  the  halt,  and  the  blind. 

Yet  the  great  body  of  systematic  writers  in  political 
economy  have  carried  the  classification  which  resulted 
from  their  analysis  of  the  processes  of  production  over, 
without  change,  into  the  discussion  of  the  questions  of 
distribution ;  and  having  found  labor  and  capital  the  two 
agents  in  production,  have  proceeded  to  speak  of  the  remune- 
ration of  labor  and  the  remuneration  of  capital,  as  if  labor 

1  Chapter  XII. 


CLASSIFICATION  OF  LABORERS.  9 

and  capital  did  in  fact  receive  shares  always   distinct  in 
the  distribution  of  wealth. 

Now  it  is  easy  to  show  that  the  term  Labor,  according  to 
this  use  of  it,  includes  the  part  in  industry  of  five  classes 
of  persons  clearly  separable  in  economical  idea,  and  gene- 
rally to  be  distinguished  clearly  in  life,  namely :  1st,  the 
class  who  work  for  themselves,  by  themselves,  either  on 
their  own  land  (the  "  peasant  proprietor"  of  Europe,  and 
the  American  "  farmer- ')  or  in  mechanical  trades.  This 
class  may  consume  their  own  products  entire,1  or  exchange 
them  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  but  in  either  case  there  is 
no  distribution.  2d,  the  tenant  occupier  of  land,  like  the 
cottar  of  Ireland  or  the  ryot  of  India,  who  receives  the 
whole  produce,  subject  only  to  the  deduction  of  rent  for 
the  natural  powers  of  the  soil.  3d,  the  class  of  persons 
working  for  hire  (e.  g.,  domestic  servants,  soldiers,  clergy- 
men) who  are  paid  out  of  the  revenue  of  their  employers, 
and  are  not  employed  with  any  reference  to  the  profits  of 
production.  4th,  the  class  of  persons  working  for  hire, 
whether  in  agriculture,  in  trade,  or  in  mechanical  pursuits, 
who  are  paid  out  of  the  product  of  their  industry,  and  are 
employed  with  reference  to  the  profits  of  production. 


1  Throughout  the  present  discussion  I  shall  waive  all  question  of 
the  amount  derived  by  the  government  from  taxation.  Whether 
taxes  be,  as  Professor  Senior  claims  (Pol.  Econ.,  p.  183-5),  "  a  form  01 
expenditure,"  and  hence  only  cognizable  in  the  department  of  Con- 
sumption, it  is  not  needful  to  decide  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
even  though  government  were  to  be  regarded  as,  in  a  certain  sense,  a 
partner  in  the  production  of  wealth,  and  a  sharer  in  its  distribution, 
yet,  inasmuch  as  government  always  enters  by  force  and  carries 
away  its  part,  determining  for  itself  alike  how  much  it  will  take  and 
to  what  use  it  will  apply  what  it  takes,  political  economy  can  know 
nothing  of  it.  As  the  laws  are  silent  amid  arms,  economical  science 
bows  before  the  tax-gatherer.  Whether  government  shall  take  much 
or  little  for  its  own  purposes  out  of  the  wealth  that  has  been  pro- 
duced is  the  business,  not  of  the  economist,  but  of  the  statesman. 
The  methods  and  subjects  of  taxation  do  come  within  the  field  of  politi- 
cal economy,  but  it  is  only  because  they  affect  the  production  of  future 
wealth,  its  distribution,  its  exchange. 


10  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

5th,  the  employers  themselves,  in  so  far  as  they  personally 
conduct  and  control  business  operations,  their  remuneration 
being  styled  the  "  wages  of  supervision  and  management." 

Now  to  the  remuneration  of  each  of  these  five  classes  the 
economists  generally,  as  I  have  said,  apply  the  term  "Wages, 
although  only  the  third  and  fourth  classes  do  in  fact  receive 
a  remuneration  for  their  services  distinct  from  that  which 
they  receive  for  the  use  of  their  capital ;  being  therefore 
the  only  classes  which  receive  "wages"  in  the  ordinary 
meaning  of  that  word  ;  and  although,  in  the  second  place, 
classes  4  and  5  thus  grouped  have  interests  as  strongly 
opposed  as  human  interests  can  well  become. 

The  explanation  of  such  a  classification  would  fairly 
seem  to  be  that  which  has  been  indicated,  namely,  that 
economists  have  assumed  as  of  course  that  the  industrial 
functions  which  they  distinguish  in  the  production  of 
wealth  will  necessarily  characterize  the  industrial  classes 
interested  in  the  distribution  of  wealth.  Otherwise  it 
would  scarcely  be  possible  that  a  classification  should 
be  seriously  proposed,  for  the  solution  of  the  problems  of 
distribution,  which  groups  together  employer  and  em- 
ployed ;  the  peasant  proprietor,  the  tenant  occupier,  and 
the  hired  agricultural  hand ;  the  navvy  and  the  railroad 
king;  the  day-laborer  and  the  domestic  servant  with  a 
Stewart,  an  Astor,  and  a  Rothschild. 

It  is  true  that  labor,  in  a  certain  sense  of  that  word,  is 
common  to  these  and  all  other  classes  in  production  ;  and 
this  fact  of  itself  ought  to  be  enough  to  show  that  it  is  not 
labor  which  should  be  taken  to  distinguish  classes  in  dis- 
tribution. It  is  not  what  these  classes  have  in  common, 
but  those  things  by  which  they  differ  from  each  other, 
which  should  be  made  the  means  of  characterizing  them 
as  claimants  to  the  product  of  industry. 


It  might  fairly  be  expected  that  after  insisting   thus 
peremptorily  that  the  question  of  Wages  is  a  question  in  the 


DISTRIBUTION  OF  WEALTH.  11 

Distribution  of  Wealth,  and  that,  in  distribution,  not  in- 
dustrial functions,  but  industrial  classes,  should  be  consider- 
ed, one  would  in  a  treatise  on  "Wages  at  once  proceed  to 
state  the  problem  of  distribution,  and  to  define  the  wages 
class  as  a  party  thereto.  But,  on  the  contrary,  I  shall  be 
obliged  to  take  up  and  explain  with  much  particularity 
certain  principles  of  Production  and  Population  which 
can  not  safely  be  assumed  for  our  present  purposes,  and 
also  to  deal  at  some  length  with  a  current  theory  respect- 
ing the  remuneration  of  labor,  which  squarely  blocks  the 
way  to  a  philosophy  of  Wages. 


CHAPTEE   II. 

NOMINAL   AND   KEAL   WAGES. 

A  DISTINCTION  which  needs  to  be  apprehended  with  great 
clearness  and  held  strongly  in  the  mind,  throughout  all 
discussion  of  "Wages,  is  that  between  Nominal  and  Real 
Wages. 

Real  Wages  are  the  remuneration  of  the  hired  laborer  as 
reduced  to  the  necessaries,  comforts,  or  luxuries  of  life. 
These  are  what  the  laborer  works  for ;  these  are  truly  his 
wages.  The  money  he  receives  under  his  contract  with 
his  employer  is  only  a  means  to  that  end  ;  sometimes,  as  it 
proves,  a  most  delusive  means.  If,  as  is  the  case  with  the 
great  majority  of  his  class,  he  spends  every  week  or  every 
month  his  entire  earnings,  he  can  see  for  himself,  no 
matter  how  little  given  to  reflection,  that  his  wages  are  not 
his  money,  but  what  his  money  brings.  If,  again,  he  is 
frugal  and  forehanded  enough  to  save  a  portion  of  his 
wages,  and  hoard  it  up  or  put  it  out  at  interest,  it  is  still 
true,  though  not  perhaps  so  evident,  that  this  portion  of 
his  wages  also  means,  in  some  near  or  distant  future,  "  food, 
clothing,  lodging,  and  firing"  to  himself  or  to  his  family. 
The  habitual  miser,  the  person  who  loves  money  for  its 
own  sake,  is  one  of  the  most  exceptional  of  human  beings, 
the  victim,  doubtless,  of  a  distinct  form  of  disease  as  truly 
as  the  subject  of  alcoholism. 

But  this  reduction  of  Nominal  to  Real  Wages  is  not  an 
easy  matter.  "  No  one,"  says  Mr.  G.  R.  Porter  in  his  Pro- 
gress of  the  Nation,  "  unless  he  shall  have  made  the  at- 


NOMINAL  AND  REAL   WAGES.  13 

tempt  to  obtain  information  of  this  kind,  can  be  aware 
of  the  difficulties  opposed  to  his  success." 

Real  may  differ  from  Nominal  Wages  by  reason  of : 

1st.  Variations  in  the  purchase-power  of  money. 

2d.  Varieties  in  the  form  of  payment. 

3d.  Opportunities  for  extra  earnings. 

4th.  The  greater  or  less  regularity  of  employment. 

5th.  The  longer  or  shorter  duration  of  the  laboring 
power. 

I  shall  consider  these  causes1  in  the  order  in  which 
they  are  here  given. 

I.  The  purchase-power  of  money  may  vary  by  reason 
of  changes  in  the  supply  of,  or  in  the  demand  for,  money. 
First,  of  changes  in  the  supply  of  money. 

(a)  Changes  of  Coinage. — If  a  given  amount  of 
gold  or  silver  be  rendered  into  a  greater  number  of 
coins  than  formerly,  it  is  evident  that  each  coin  will 
piirchase  fewer  commodities.  Now  when  it  is  stated 
that  the  English  "pound"  of  to-day  contains  less 
than  one  third  the  standard  silver  it  contained  in  1300 
A.D. — 12  oz.  of  English  silver  coin  metal  being  now 
rendered  into  66  shillings,  whereas  a  shilling8  is  nomi- 
nally the  twentieth  part  of  a  "pound" — and  that  the 
French  livre  of  1789  contained  less  than  one  sixty-sixth 
part  of  the  silver  implied  in  its  name,  the  importance  of 

1  To  the  considerations  enumerated  must  be  added,  as  Mr.  Ward 
has  shown,  still  another,  in  the  case  of  laborers  working  by  the  piece. 
"  When  piece-work  is  done,  you  have  to  consider  not  only  the  price 
per  piece  paid,  but  also  the  conditions,  as  of  machinery,  etc.     Thus  the 
Hyde  spinners  in  1824  struck  because  they  were  getting  less  per  piece 
than  others,  though  all  the  tune  they  were,  by  reason  of  improved 
machinery,  actually  earning  more  per  day." — Workmen  and  Wages, 
p.  23. 

2  The  shilling  in  America  suffered  a  still  harder  fate— twenty  "  York 
shillings"  having  the  value  of  but  $2.50,  and  20  New-England  shil- 
lings the  value  of  $3.33.     In  Pennsylvania  the  "  dollar  "  was,  at  differ- 
ent dates,  worth  4s.  Qd.  ;  5*.  ;  5*  Qd.  ;  6*. ;  6*.  6d. ;   7s.  •  7*.  6d.— Col- 
well's  Ways  and  Means  of  Payment,  p.  99. 


' 


14  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

this  discrimination  in  historical  comparisons  of  wages  be- 
comes manifest. 

Even  in  comparison  of  contemporary  wages,  care  has  often 
to  be  taken  lest  coins  of  the  same  name  but  of  differing 
value  be  confounded.  Thus,  in  the  United  States,  the 
York  shilling  (eight  to  a  dollar)  and  the  New-England 
shilling  (six  to  a  dollar)  were  until  recently  liable  to  be 
taken  for  each  other  in  calculation  of  prices.  In  the  same 
way  the  English  penny  differs  from  the  penny  in  use  in  the 
island  of  Jersey,  of  which  it  takes  thirteen  to  make  a  shil- 
ling. 

(5)  Changes  in  the  amount  of  the  precious  metals  in 
circulation. — The  history  of  the  production  of  gold  and 
silver  is  a  history  of  often  intermitted  and  always  highly 
spasmodic  activity.  Thus  in  the  year  800  there  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  on  hand  gold  and  silver  to  the  value,  as 
expressed  in  American  gold  coin,  of  $1,790,000,000. 
Between  that  date  and  1492,  the  date  of  the  discovery  of 
America,  with  its  vast  reserves  of  mined  and  resources  of 
unmined  treasure,  the  estimated  product  was  $345,000,000. 
Between  1492  and  1803  the  product  is  given  as  $5,820,- 
700,000  ;  between  1803  and  1848,  as  $2,484,000,000  ;  be- 
tween 1848  and  1868,  as  $3,571,000,000.  The  effect  upon 
prices  wrought  by  such  wholesale  changes  in  the  volume  of 
the  precious  metals  has  long  been  discussed,  and  with 
great  fulness,  by  economical  writers,  as  influencing  the 
wages  of  labor,  producing  a  wide  divergence  between  real 
and  nominal  wages  in  comparison  of  different  periods ; 
but  we  owe  to  Prof.  Cairnes1  the  demonstration  that  this 
cause  is  also  influential  in  creating  disturbances  in  contem- 
porary wages,  the  effect  upon  prices  being  produced  very 
irregularly  as  between  countries,  and  as  between  different 
classes  of  commodities  in  the  same  country. 

(c)  Fluctuations  in  the  paper  substitutes  for  coin. — A 
paper  currency  purporting  to  be  convertible  into  coin,  but  in 

1  Essays  on  the  Gold  Question,  1858-60. 


PURCHASE  POWER  OF  MONEY.  15 

fact  issued,  in  reliance  on  the  doctrine  of  chances,  in  con- 
siderable excess  of  the  amount  of  gold  and  silver  held  for 
its  redemption,  will  undergo  far  more  sudden  and  violent 
changes  than  would  be  possible  with  a  gold  and  silver  cur- 
rency, or  a  paper  currency  based,  dollar  for  dollar,  upon 
the  precious  metals.  The  reason  is  that,  as  the  excess 
of  circulation  over  the  specie  basis  consists  of  credit,  and 
not  of  value,  it  is  governed,  both  in  expansion  and  in  con- 
traction, by  the  condition  of  credit,  and  not  by  the  laws  of 
value,  as  a  value  currency  would  be.  It  costs  twice  as 
much  labor  to  raise  two  thousand  ounces  of  gold  from  the 
mine  as  to  raise  one  thousand  ounces.  It  costs  no  more  to 
engrave,  print,  and  sign  a  thousand  two-dollar  than  a  thou- 
sand one-dollar  bills.  Since,  then,  a  paper  circulation  may 
be  increased  without  labor,  all  such  currencies  have  shown 
a  strong  tendency  to  increase  under  every  speculative  im- 
pulse in  trade,  the  currency  allowing  prices  to  advance,  and 
the  advance  of  prices,  in  turn,  quickening  the  speculative 
impulse,  and  thus  creating  new  demands  for  additional  cur- 
rency. When,  however,  prices  have  been  carried  to  their 
height,  and  the  market  begins  to  feel  the  effects  of  highly- 
stimulated  foreign  importations,  while  for  the  same  reason 
the  specie  basis  of  an  already  dangerously  inflated  circula- 
tion begins  to  be  drawn  upon  to  pay  for  the  goods  thus 
brought  in,  the  contraction  of  the  currency  will  be  even 
more  sudden  and  extreme  than  was  the  expansion.  Not  a 
gold  dollar  can  be  taken  away  unless  something  is  given 
for  it ;  a  bank-bill  has  cost  nothing :  it  will  cost  nothing  to 
replace  it.  It  may  therefore  be  destroyed  without  loss  to 
the  bank. 

But  while  a  wide  divergence  between  Nominal  and 
Real  Wages  may  be  created  by  the  alternate  expan- 
sions and  contractions  of  a  currency  issued  on  the  doctrine 
of  chances  in  excess  of  its  specie  basis,  the  disturbances 
hereby  introduced  into  wages  are  slight  compared  with 
those  caused  by  the  issue  of  inconvertible  government  pa- 
per. Thus  we  iind  Washington  writing,  during  the  Revo- 


16  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

lution,  that  it  took  a  wagon-load  of  money  to  buy  a  wagon- 
load  of  provisions.  The  money  of  which  he  thus  wrote 
was  the  famous  "  Continental  currency."  The  deprecia- 
tion of  this  currency  had  been  rapid.  March  1st,  1778, 
$1  in  coin  would  purchase  $1.75  in  paper;  Sept.  1st, 

1778,  $4;  March  1st,  1779,  $10;  Sept.  1st,   1779,  $18  ; 
March  18th,  1780,  $40 ;  Dec.  1st,  1780,  $100 ;  May  1st, 
1781,  $200-500. 

The  printing-press  had  nearly  fulfilled  the  prediction  of 
John  Adams,  in  making  "  money  as  plenty,  and  of  course 
as  cheap,  as  oak-leaves."1  Mr.  Jefferson  says2  that  the 
paper  continued  to  circulate  in  the  Southern  States  till  it 
had  fallen  to  $1000  for  $1.  We  are  familiar  with  the 
prices  at  which  the  necessaries  of  life  were  purchased  in 
currency  thus  depreciated  :  "  Bohea  tea,  forty-five  dollars  ; 
salt — which  used  to  be  sold  for  a  shilling  a  bushel — forty 
dollars  a  bushel,  and,  in  some  of  the  States,  two  hundred 
dollars  at  times  ;  linens,  forty  dollars  a  yard  ;  ironmongery 
of  all  sorts,  one  hundred  and  twenty  for  one."3 

I  have  before  me  the  public  records  of  the  second  pre- 
cinct of  the  township  of  Brookfield,  Massachusetts,  for  this 
period.  On  the  23d  May,  1776,  a  "  gospel  minister  "  was 
called,  the  terms  of  settlement  being  as  follows  :  "  Voted 
and  granted  the  sum  of  £70  the  two  first  years  each  as  sa- 
lary, and  the  third  year  to  rise  to  £80  per  annum  during  his 
ministry."  The  succeeding  votes  show  the  effects  of  the 
currency  inflation :  Dec.  3d,  1778,  "  Yoted  and  granted  the 
sum  of  £220  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Appleton,  to  be  assessed  on 
the  polls  and  estates  within  this  precinct,  in  addition  to 
the  former  grant  of  £80  for  the  present  year."  Oct.  21s£, 

1779,  "  Voted  and  granted  the  sum  of  £720  to  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Appleton,  in  addition  to  his  stated  salary  of  £80." 
April  3d,  1780,  "  Voted  that  the  £220  granted  Dec.  3d, 
1778,  shall  go  for  the  preceding  year.     Voted  that  the  £720 
granted  Oct.  21st,  1779,  be  so  far  reconsidered  as  that  the 

1  Works,  ix.  463.       a  Works,  ix.  249.      3  Works  of  J.  Adams,  vii.  199. 


PURCHASE-POWER  OF  MONEY.  17 

same  shall  be  for  the  preceding  instead  of  the  ensuing  year. 
Then  voted  and  granted  the  sum  of  £2420  in  addition  to 
his  stated  salary,  to  be  assessed  on  the  polls  and  estates 
within  this  precinct,  for  the  support  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Ap- 
pleton  from  October,  1779,  to  October,  1780." 

Second.  The  purchase-power  of  money  may  vary  by 
reason  of  changes  in  the  demand  for  money.  The  sup- 
ply of  money  is  the  amount  which  is  offered  for  all  other 
commodities  ;  the  demand  for  money  is  the  amount  of  all 
other  commodities  offered  for  it.  Eggs  in  the  Highlands 
were  cheap  in  Dr.  Johnson's  day,  "  not  because  eggs  were 
plenty,  but  because  pence  were  few."  "Whether  it  be  the 
plentifulness  cf  eggs  or  the  fewness  of  pence  which  deter- 
mines the  price,  the  historian  of  wages  is  bound  to  ascer- 
tain. 

It  is  manifest  that  the  annual  production  of  commodities 
will  increase  with  the  efficiency  of  labor  and  capital,  and 
that  this  increase  is  from  age  to  age  very  great ;  also,  that 
the  longer  this  annual  production  is  sustained  the  greater 
will  be  the  accumulation  of  commodities,  the  results  of 
past  production. 


Two  practical  remarks  remain  to  be  made,  in  the  nature 
of  warning,  to  those  who  undertake  the  difficult  task  of 
instituting  such  comparisons  of  wages  as  are  referred  to 
above. 

The  first  relates  to  the  effect  of  local  prices.  The  com- 
modities into  which  the  laborer  desires  to  render  his  money 
wages,  bear  prices  differing  greatly  in  localities  not  far  re- 
moved from  each  other.  The  mere  passage  from  city  to  coun 
try  often  produces  a  marked  distinction  in  the  prices  of  the 
first  necessaries  of  life;  while,  where  more  considerable 
distances  intervene,  the  differences  in  local  prices  are  often 
sufficient  to  effect  a  substantial  equality  between  nominal 
wages  widely  divergent,  or  to  greatly  exaggerate  apparent 
differences.  Thus  a  mechanic  living  in  some  portions  of 

>v 

^r^\ 
UNJVEKfclT*  1 


18  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

Vermont,  away  from  a  railroad,  can  buy  food  for  his  fam- 
ily at  prices  which  would  sound  like  a  dream  to  a  town 
mechanic.  Indeed  some  of  the  most  expensive  luxuries  of 
the  city,  to  which  professional  men  scarce  aspire,  sweet 
cream,  fresh  fruits,  and  new-laid  eggs,  are  within  easy 
reach  of  his  means.  The  more  substantial  articles  of  diet, 
meats,  grains,  and  vegetables,  cost  one  half,  or  one  third 
perhaps,  what  they  do  in  a  city  market.  Would  he  build 
a  house  ?  The  main  material  costs  little  ;  the  land  less. 
Does  he  lease  a  cottage  ?  His  rent  is  not  one  fourth  what 
his  city  cousin  pays  for  perhaps  squalid  and  unwholesome 
quarters. 

But,  it  may  be  asked,  is  not  the  country  mechanic  at  a 
disadvantage  in  respect  to  all  the  commodities,  whether 
manufactured  articles  or  the  products  of  agriculture,  which 
are  brought  from  abroad  ;  and  does  not  this  disadvantage 
go  far  to  counterbalance  the  advantages  enumerated  ?  It 
can  not  be  questioned  that  a  loss  is  suffered  on  this  ac- 
count ;  but  it  is  much  less  than  the  gain  by  reason  of  two 
causes  :  first,  the  greater  share  of  his  expenditures  are  for 
articles  produced  near  by  ;  second,  those  which  are  brought 
from  abroad  are,  almost  without  exception,  markedly  in- 
ferior in  bulk  to  those  which  are  supplied  by  the  domestic 
market,  and  hence  their  price  is  less  enhanced  by  transporta- 
tion. He  saves  upon  his  meats  and  grains  and  vegetables, 
his  fuel,  and  the  timber  for  his  house,  the  freight  of  those 
articles  to  a  market ;  he  pays  the  freight  from  market  upon 
groceries  and  spices ;  upon  clothes  and  shoes ;  upon  nails 
and  putty  and  glass. 

My  second  warning  relates  to  the  liability  of  error  in 
comparison  of  wages  due  to  the  great  diversity  which  ex- 
ists in  the  articles  consumed  by  the  wages  class  in  dif- 
ferent places  and  at  different  times.  Even  in  the  lowest 
condition  of  life  the  laborer's  expenditure  is  upon  several 
articles  which  are  necessary  to  his  subsistence,  while  in 
countries  where  nature  is  more  liberal  or  art  has  greatly 
diversified  human  industry,  the  laborer  indulges  in  a  con- 


PURCHASE-POWER  OF  MONEY.  19 

siderable  variety  of  expenditures.  Now,  not  only  is  it 
true  that  some  of  these  articles  may  rise  in  price  while 
others  remain  stationary,  or  even  decline — or  if  all  rise,  yet 
each  rises  in  a  degree  peculiar  to  itself,  and  so  an  average 
becomes  difficult  to  reach,  particularly  in  the  absence  of 
ample  and  authentic  statistics  of  retail  trade,  scarcely  any- 
where attainable — but  those  articles  which  make  up  the  sub- 
sistence of  workingmen  are  consumed  by  them  in  very  vari- 
ous proportions,  rendering  it  necessary,  in  estimating  the 
comparative  wages  of  two  periods,  to  have  regard  not  only  to 
the  advance  or  decline  in  price  of  each  such  article,  but  also 
to  the  amount  thereof  entering  into  consumption,  inasmuch 
as  a  large  advance  upon  some  commodity  which  the  la- 
borer uses  but  rarely  and  in  very  limited  amounts  may 
affect  his  well-being  far  less  than  a  moderate  rise  in 
another  commodity  of  prime  necessity. 

This  it  is  which  makes  it  so  difficult  to  compare  wages  at 
different  periods  in  the  United  States.  The  habits  of  the 
people  vary  and  have  varied  so  greatly  in  respect  to  dress 
and  diet,  not  to  speak  of  other  things,  as  to  make  it  almost 
impossible  to  secure  a  statement  which  will  be  accepted  by 
all  candid  parties  to  a  controversy  as  to  the  quantities 
of  each  principal  article  of  consumption,  which  shall 
represent  the  expenditure  of  the  average  workman's  fam- 
ily ;  and  unless  a  statement  of  quantities  can  be  accepted 
as  approximately  correct,  it  can  afford  only  a  vague  idea 
to  secure  even  a  precise  statement  of  the  prices  of  the  sev- 
eral articles. 

II.  Nominal  and  Keal  "Wages  may  differ,  secondly,  by 
reason  of  varieties  in  the  form  of  payment. 

Wages  are,  to  a  very  large  extent,  though  reckoned  in 
money,  not  paid  in  money.1  In  agriculture,  the  world 

1  Even  when  wages  are  paid  in  money,  there  are  two  methods  by 
which  their  real  value  to  the  laborer  may  be  reduced  in  addition  to  all 
the  causes  mentioned  under  the  preceding  head.  These  are,  first,  the 
practice  of  "  long-pays,"  by  which  the  workman  is  held  a  long  time 
out  of  his  wages,  and  obliged  to  purchase  goods  meanwhile  on  credit. 


20  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

over,  full  payment  in  money  is  highly  exceptional  where 
it  is  not  wholly  unknown.  In  England  the  money  wages 
in  general  far  exceed  the  estimated  value  of  all  the  other 
forms  of  payment,  and  rarely  constitute  less  than  one  half 
the  nominal  wages.  In  Scotland,  except  in  the  neighbor- 
hood of  large  towns,  payment  in  kind  is  very  general, 
while  "  in  some  parts  of  the  highlands  little  money  passes 
at  all  between  employer  and  employed." l  In  Germany3 
the  report  of  the  recent  commission  of  the  Agricultural 
Congress  proves  the  custom  of  payments  in  kind  to  prevail 
in  every  province  from  East  Prussia  to  Alsace.  In  France3 
this  custom  prevails  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  in  nearly  all 
departments.  In  the  United  States  board  to  the  unmar- 
ried laborer  is  perhaps  the  rule ;  while  in  the  South,  at 
least,  the  payment  in  kind  generally  includes  the  subsist- 
ence of  the  laborer  and  his  family,  and,  to  a  considerable 
extent,  other  necessaries  of  life. 

on  ruinous  terms.  This  is  sometimes  necessary  in  new  countries  ;  but 
in  old  countries  it  is  often  resorted  to  needlessly,  and  forms  one  of  the 
standing  grievances  of  the  laboring  class.  The  second  is  the  practice 
of  "  truck,"  by  which  the  workman,  though  perhaps  for  form's  sake 
paid  in  money,  is  compelled,  under  fear  of  discharge,  to  purchase 
goods  at  the  employer's  store.  The  effects  of  the  latter  practice  on  the 
welfare  of  the  laboring  classes  will  be  discussed  fully  at  a  later  stage 
(pp.  324-42). 

1  Fourth  Report,  Commission  on  the  Employment  of  Women  and 
Children  in  Agriculture,  p.  110.     "  Part  payment  in  food  still  prevails 
extensively  in  Wales." — Frederick  Purdy,  Statistical  Journal,  xxiv. 
329. 

2  Die  Lage  der  landlichen  Arbeiter. 

"  The  married  farm-servants/'  says  Mr.  Petre  in  his  Report  of  1870 
on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes  of  Prussia  (p.  50), "  are  called 
'  Deputaten/  or  persons  receiving  an  allowance  in  kind,  to  distinguish 
them  from  other  farm-servants  who  all  take  their  meals  together  at 
the  farm.  The  '  Deputaten '  receive  in  addition  to  their  wages  a  cer- 
tain allowance  of  corn,  potatoes,  etc.  TJiis  primitive  practice  is,  however, 
gradually  giving  way  to  the  system  of  paying  full  wages  in  money, ." 

3 "  In  the  departments  Bouches  du  Rhone,  Gard,  and  Gironde  it  is 
not  customary  to  pay  in  kind.  In  some,  this  description  of  payment 
does  not  amount  to  more  than  10  francs  (a  year).  In  some,  it  sur- 
passes in  value  the  amount  of  money  payment." — Lord  Brabazon's  Report 
on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes  of  France,  1872,  p.  42. 


PAYMENT  OF  WAGES  IN  KIND.  21 

In  the  various  branches  of  mechanical  labor  money  pay- 
ment is  more  usual,  though  Mr.  Seymour  Tremenheere,  in 
his  visits  to  the  United  States  prior  to  1850,  found  the 
practice  of  paying  wages  partly  in  commodities  quite  gen- 
eral j1  and  in  England  money  payments  have  only  been 
secured  by  vigorous  legislation  and  great  vigilance  in  ad- 
ministration. Mr.  Herries  reports"  that  in  the  sulphur- 
mining  districts  of  Italy  "  stores  exist,  under  the  direction 
of  the  administration,  where  the  persons  employed  are  pro- 
vided with  oil,  wine,  and  bread,  and  other  necessaries,  under 
the  i  tally '  or  i  truck '  system." 

Payment  of  the  wages  of  mechanical  labor  otherwise  than 
in  the  coin  of  the  realm  is  forbidden  in  Germany  by  the  In- 
dustrial Code  of  1869.  In  France  the  artisan  classes  have 
always  resented  payment  in  commodities  with  a  peculiar 
jealousy. 

The  multitudinous  forms  of  payment  other  than  in 
money  may  be  rudely  grouped  for  our  present  some- 
what casual  purpose  as  (1)  rent,  where  cottages  or  tene- 
ments are  provided  for  the  laborer  and  his  family  by  the 
employer,  whether  in  agricultural  or  in  mechanical  indus- 
try ;  (2)  board,  mainly  confined  to  unmarried  laborers ; 
(3)  allowances,  such  as  definite  quantities  of  various  kinds 
of  food,  drink,  or  fuel ;  (4)  what  we  may  call,  in  distinction 
from  No.  5,  perquisites,  such  as  the  hauling  of  the  labor- 
er's coal  or  peat  by  the  employer's  teams,  the  keep  of  a 
cow,  the  opportunity  to  take  flour  at  miller  s  prices  ;8 


1  Report  on  the  Payment  of  Wages  Bill  (1854),  pp.  103-5. 

2  Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes  of  Italy,  1871,  p. 
231. 

8  In  Devonshire  and  elsewhere  a  "  grist-corn"  perquisite  is  recog- 
nized, by  which  the  laborer  is  allowed  to  have  grain  at  a  fixed  price 
per  bushel,  whatever  the  market  rate.  The  amount  so  allowed  to  be 
taken  ranges  from  two  or  three  pecks  to  a  bushel  every  fortnight. — 
Heath's  English  Peasantry,  pp.  95,  96,  140,  141. 

"  In  some  counties,  as  Dorset,  the  farmer  pays  part  of  his  men's 
wages  in  corn  at  1  shilling  per  bushel  below  the  market  price."— 
Mr.  Purdy,  Stat.  Journal,  xxiv.  329. 


23  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

(5)  privileges,  like  the  gleaning  of  fields  or  the  keeping  a 

Pig- 
Thus  Mr.  T.  Scott,  of  Roxburghshire,  allows  his  work- 
men a  free  house  and  garden  ;  food  (say  4  weeks)  in  har- 
vest ;  carriage  of  coal ;  permission  to  keep  a  pig,  and  the 
keep  of  a  cow ;  100  stones  of  oatmeal,  21  bushels  of  bar- 
ley, 6  bushels  of  peas,  1600  yards  of  potatoes,  6  tons  of 
coal  at  pit  prices,  £5  in  money,  in  addition  to  extra  earn- 
ings  at  harvest.1  Another  farmer  gives  his  two  plough- 
men £27  and  £26  severally  per  annum,  free  cottages 
and  gardens,  6J-  bolls  of  meal,  3  bolls  of  potatoes,  and 
"  drives"  their  coal.  Another  in  the  highland  part  of 
Lanarkshire  gives  £18  annually,  the  keep  of  a  cow,  liberty 
to  keep  a  pig,  65  stones  of  oatmeal,  and  16  cwrl.  of  pota- 
toes. He  places  the  total  value  of  money  wages,  allowances, 
etc.,  at  from  £35  to  £40.2  From  the  above  it  will  readily 
be  seen  how  difficult  and  how  nearly  impossible  it  is  to  re- 
duce such  various  conditions  to  the  uniform  expression 
necessary  for  comparison.  The  "  board  "  furnished  may 
vary  from  the  generous  living  characteristic  of  Cumber- 
land and  Westmoreland3  in  England,  and  of  the  United 
States  generally,  to  the  barest  and  coarsest  subsistence 
allowed  in  less  favored  regions.  The  cottages  thus  given 
rent  free  may  be  "  model  cottages"  or  they  may  be  of  the 
character4  described  in  so  many  English  official  reports, 
early  and  recent,  with  reference  to  which  the  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury  said,  "  Dirt  and  disrepair  such  as  ordinary 


1  Fourth  Report  (1870)  Commission  on  the  Employment  of  Women 
and  Children  in  Agriculture,  p.  58. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  110.  3  See  Mr.  Tremenheere's  Report  for  1869. 

4  The  Hon.  Edward  Stanhope,  Assistant  Commissioner,  says  of  the 
cottages  in  Shropshire  :  "  The  point  especially  deserving  of  attention  in 
this  county  is  the  infamous  character  of  the  cottages.     In  the  majority 
of  the  parishes  I  visited  they  may  be  described  as  tumble-down  and 
ruinous,  not  water-tight,  very  deficient  in  bedroom  accommodations  and 
in  decent  sanitary  arrangements." — Report  on  the  Employment  of 
Women  and  Children  in  Agriculture,  1868-9,  p.  xxxiv. 


PERQUISITES  AND  ALLOWANCES.  23 

folks  can  form  no  notion  of,  darkness  that  may  be  felt, 
odors  that  may  be  handled,  faintness  that  can  hardly  be 
resisted,  hold  despotic  rule  in  these  dens  of  despair." *•  In 
respect  to  the  other  allowances,  perquisites,  and  privileges, 
as  we  have  classed  them,  which  go  so  largely  to  make  up 
the  wages  of  the  laborer  in  agriculture  in  all  countries, 
there  is  perhaps  not  quite  so  great  range  as  in  the  board  or 
cottage  rent  furnished ;  yet  differences  in  the  quality  of 
the  articles  allowed,  or  in  their  adaptation  to  the  wants  of 
the  laborer,  or  in  the  generosity  with  which  traditional  or 
stipulated  privileges  are  interpreted,  may  still  go  far  to 
contract  or  expand  the  apparent  wages.  Thus  Mr.  Heath 
in  his  work,  "  The  English  Peasantry,"  charges  that  the 
hauling  of  turf  for  the  laborer's  fuel  is  often  a  delusion 
and  a  snare,  the  turf  when  cut  and  piled  up  on  the  moors  fre- 
quently being  spoiled  by  the  rain  before  the  farmer  finds 
it  convenient  to  lend  the  horse  and  cart  ;2  also  that  the 
oft-cited  "  grist-corn"  perquisite  is  of  little  or  of  no  value 
to  the  laborer,  the  corn  for  this  purpose  being  frequently 
taken  from  the  "  rakings"  of  the  field.3  It  is  upon  the 
cider  allowance,  however,  that  Mr.  Heath  expends  the  main 
force  of  his  indignation,  and  he  quotes  with  effect  the  tes- 
timony of  Mr.  Austin,  one  of  the  Assistant  Poor-Law  Com- 
missioners of  18i3,  as  to  the  very  inferior  quality  of  the 
article  supplied  by  the  farmers  of  the  western  counties 
"  under  the  ironical  name  of  cider."* 

The  "cow"  and  the  "pig"  as  elements  of  wages  de- 
serve a  brief  mention.  It  will  be  noted  that  we  have 
placed  them  under  different  heads  in  our  classification. 
The  entire  "  keep"  of  the  cow  is  furnished  by  the  employ- 
er over  whose  land  she  grazes  ;  the  food  of  the  pig,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  supposed  to  be  furnished  by  the  laborer  him- 
self, though  a  natural  doubt  on  that  point  leads  many  em- 

1  Address  as    President  Br.  Soc.  Sc.   Association,  1833.     Transac- 
tions, p.  9. 
a  P.  94.  8  P.  95,  cf.  140, 141.  4  Pp.  55,  58,  86,  87. 


24  THE   WAGES  QUESTION. 

ployers  to  refuse  this  highly  valued  privilege.1  "  For- 
merly," said  Mr.  Inglis,  writing  of  the  peasants'  rent  in  Ire- 
land in  1834,  "  the  pig  was  sufficient  for  this  ;  but  the  market 
has  so  fallen  that  something  is  wanted  besides  the  pig  to 
make  up  the  rent."2  In  England  Mr.  Heath  assigns  the 
pig  a  somewhat  different  function.  It  is  at  once  "  to  the 
farm  laborer  a  kind  of  savings-bank,  in  which  he  puts  the 
few  scraps  he  can  save  out  of  his  scanty  fare,"3  and  also  "  a 
kind  of  surety  with  the  petty  village  tradesman.  Poor 
Hodge  could  get  no  credit  if  he  had  not  some  such  secu- 
rity as  a  pig  affords."* 

The  keep  of  a  cow  is  of  course  a  much  larger  concession 
from  the  employer,  and  is  proportionally  rare.  Sir  Bald- 
wyn  Leighton  declares  it  to  be  not  less  than  "  the  solution 
of  the  whole  question  of  the  agricultural  laborer."5  The 
net  weekly  profit  Sir  Baldwyn  estimates  at  5  or  6  shil- 
lings, the  entire  labor  being  performed  by  the  wife  and 
younger  children.  It  will,  of  course,  be  urged  that  such  a 
concession  would  amount  simply  to  a  proportionate  reduc- 
tion of  money  wages.  This  is  a  question  which  we  shall 
perhaps  be  in  a  better  position  to  discuss  hereafter.  The 
concession  of  "  cow-land  "  is  only  mentioned  here  as  one 
of  the  many  ways  in  which,  even  in  wealthy  communities, 
laborers  in  agriculture  are  still  paid,  rendering  it  a  work  of 
extreme  difficulty  to  reduce  the  wages  prevailing  in  differ- 
ent sections  to  any  thing  like  equal  terms. 

III.  Nominal  and  Real  Wages  may  further  differ  by 
reason  of  opportunities  for  extra  earnings  in  some  occupa- 
tions and  in  some  localities. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  true  measure  of  wages  is  to  be 


1 "  In  Dumfriesshire  even  the  keeping  of  a  pig  is  often  prohibited 
on  the  ground  that  it  affords  inducements  to  little  acts  of  peculation." 
Fourth  Report  (1870)  on  the  Employment  of  Women  and  Children  in 
Agriculture,  p.  85. 

8  A  Journey  throughout  Ireland  (4th  ed.),  p.  371. 

'English  Peasantry,  p.  113.  4Ibid.,  p.  115. 

6  Soc.  Sc.  Transactions,  1872,  pp.  395-8. 


THE  FAMILY  THE  UNIT  OF  INCOME.  25 

found  not  in  the  money  received,  but  in  the  amount  of  the 
necessaries,  comforts,  and  luxuries  of  life  which  that  money 
will  purchase.  But  it  often  happens  that  the  amount  of 
money  received  oy  the  laborer  as  wages  does  not  express 
the  sum  of  his  own  earnings,  while,  again,  the  resources  of 
the  family — which,  rather  than  the  individual,  ought  to  be 
the  unit  of  income  as  it  is  of  expenditure — may  be,  in  many 
cases,  largely  augmented  by  the  earnings  of  other  members. 
Such  opportunities  vary  greatly  as  among  localities  and  as 
among  occupations,  and  hence  we  may  find  a  substantial 
equality  of  family  income  where  a  great  difference  in 
wages  apparently  exists ;  or,  in  other  cases,  the  apparent 
difference  may  be  much  enhanced  through  the  operation  of 
the  same  cause. 

An  example  of  the  first  means  of  adding  to  real  wages 
is  found  in  the  Allotment  system,  which  already  prevails  to 
a  considerable  extent  in  England  and  has  been  highly  ap- 
proved by  economists  of  reputation  ; 1  though  there  are  not 
wanting  those  who  argue  that  this  is  merely  another  means 
of  reducing  money  wages.  By  the  Allotment  system  the 
laborer  is  enabled  to  rent  a  piece  of  ground  large  enough 
to  employ  him  for  but  a  portion  of  his  time,  with  a  view 
to  its  being  carefully  worked  by  spade  culture  as  a  garden. 

An  example  of  the  second  means  of  adding  to  real  wages 
is  given  by  Prof.  Senior  when  he  says,  "  The  earnings  of 
the  wife  and  children2  of  many  a  Manchester  weaver  or 


1  H.  Fawcett,  Pol.  Econ.,  pp.  254,  255.     W.  T.  Thornton  on  Over 
Population,  chap.  viii. 

The  Commissioners  of  1843  reported  strongly  in  favor  of  the  Allot- 
ment system  ;  they  declared  that  it  did  not  tend  to  reduce  wages,  but 
that  all  the  proceeds  of  the  land  thus  cultivated  constituted  "  a  clear 
addition  to  wages." 

On  the  other  side,  Mr.  Mill,  in  his  Principles  of  Pol.  Econ. ,  wrote, 
"  The  scheme,  as  it  seems  to  me,  must  be  either  nugatory  or  mis- 
chievous. " — I.  441, 442. 

2  The  industrial  disadvantages  of  the  employment  of  married  wo- 
men in  factories  will  be  spoken  of  hereafter.     To  their  full  extent, 
whatever  that  may  be,  the  superiority  claimed  by  Prof.  Senior  for  the 


26  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

spinner  exceed  or  equal  those  of  himself.  Those  of  the 
wife  and  children  of  an  agricultural  laborer,  or  of  a  carpen- 
ter or  a  coal-heaver,  are  generally  unimportant — while  the 
husband  in  each  case  receives  15  shillings  a  week,  the 
weekly  income  of  the  one  family  may  be  30  shillings,  and 
that  of  the  other  only  IT  or  18  shillings."1  The  income 
of  the  family,  it  is  evident,  therefore,  should  be  taken  as 
the  unit  in  estimating  wages. 

IV.  No  consideration  is  more  needful  to  be  observed 
in  the  reduction  of  Nominal  to  Real  Wages  than  that  of 
the  greater  or  less  regularity  of  employment ;  yet  none  is 
more  neglected,  not  only  in  comparison  of  the  remunera- 
tion of  labor  in  different  occupations  and  localities,  but 
also  in  a  still  more  important  use  of  the  statistics  of 
wages,  namely,  the  comparison  of  different  periods  to 
ascertain  whether  strikes  and  trades  unions  have  been 
really  successful  in  advancing  the  condition  of  the  working 
classes.  It  is  not  unusual  to  see  the  fact  of  an  in- 
crease of  wages  in  certain  occupations  following  a  threat- 
ened or  accomplished  strike,  put  forward  as  proof  positive 
of  the  efficiency  of  this  instrumentality,  without  the  ques- 
tion being  raised  whether  the  certainty  and  continuity  of 
work  may  not  have  been  affected  injuriously  in  conse- 
quence. Yet  it  is  clear  that  a  nominal  increase  of  wages 
may  be  offset  by  irregularity  of  employment  so  as  not  only 

spinner  or  weaver  must  be  discounted.  Again,  so  far  as  the  employ- 
ment of  the  female  head  of  the  family  in  outside  labor,  or  of  very 
young  children  in  any  sort  of  labor,  tends  to  reduce  health  and 
strength  or  to  shorten  life,  this  must  be  set  off  against  the  advantage 
of  increased  present  earnings,  in  accordance  with  the  principles  to  be 
noted  in  the  paragraphs  which  immediately  follow. 

1  Lectures  on  Wages,  pp.  8-9. 

It  is  not  only  true  that  the  opportunities  for  extra  earnings  vary 
greatly  as  between  different  occupations,  as  shown  by  Prof.  Senior's 
illustration,  but  such  opportunities  vary  greatly  within  the  same  occu- 
pation in  different  localities.  Thus  Mr.  Purdy's  tables  of  Irish 
agricultural  wages  show  that  the  "  harvest  wages"  for  men  range 
from  2  shillings  6fZ.  a  week  above  ordinary  wages,  all  the  way  up  to 
11  shillings. — Statistical  Journal,  xxv.  448-50. 


REGULARITY  OF  EMPLOYMENT.  27 

to  render  the  advance  nugatory,  but,  through  the  influence 
on  the  laborer's  habits  of  industry,  temperance,  and  frugal- 
ity, to  make  the  change  highly  pernicious.  The  neglect  to 
make  account  of  the  regularity  of  employment  is  probably 
due  not  to  want  of  candor  in  argument,  but  to  the  lack  of 
a  popular  recognition  of  the  vital  importance  of  this  con- 
sideration. Yet  it  ought  to  be  evident  to  the  earliest 
writer  on  comparative  wages  that  the  tme  time-unit  is  not 
less  than  the  entire  year.  The  hourly,  daily,  or  weekly 
rate  of  payment  is  but  one  factor  of  wages  ;  the  number 
of  hours,  days,  and  weeks  throughout  the  year  for  which 
that  rate  of  wages  can  be  obtained  is  the  other. 

Yarying  regularity  of  employment  is  due  to  (1)  the  na- 
ture of  the  individual  occupation,  (2)  the  force  of  the  sea- 
sons, (3)  social  causes,  (4)  industrial  causes  of  a  general 
character. 

In  agriculture,  for  example,  we  find  the  first  two  causes 
operating  to  produce  great  variations  in  the  monthly  rate 
of  wages.  It  is  not  alone  the  difference  of  seasons  which 
makes  agricultural  wages  so  irregular  ;'  it  is  in  part  the 

lrriiis  irregularity  may  be  greater  or  less  according  to  climate 
or  the  character  of  the  crops.  Some  crops  require  far  more  days  of 
labor  in  the  year  than  others.  Some  countries  are  locked  in  frost  half 
the  year ;  in  others  the  ground  opens  early  and  freezes  late.  "  In  the 
countries  on  the  Danube,  these  operations  are  spread  over  seven 
months  ;  in  the  countries  on  the  north  of  the  Volga  they  must  be  con- 
cluded in  four  months." — Hearn's  Plutology,  pp.  74,  75.  An  English 
farmer  is  ploughing  while  a  New-England  farmer  is  hauling  wood  oa 
the  ice  and  snow.  Mr.  Purdy's  valuable  tables  (Statistical  Jour-' 
nal,  xxiv.  352,  353)  show  that  February  Is  the  worst  mouth  for  employ- 
ment in  agriculture  in  England  ;  August,  the  best. 

Mr.  Purdy  gives  a  table  which  he  deems  fairly  representative,  ex- 
hibiting the  divisions  of  agricultural  wages  between  the  seasons  &s 
follows : 

Paid  for  Labor : 

First  quarter 

Second    "  22.1 

Third     "  38.6 

Fourth   «  .......         20.4 

100.0 


TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 


nature  of  the  operations  involved.  After  the  seed  has 
been  planted,  time  must  be  given  it  to  grow,  and  this 
would  be  so  even  if  there  were  no  winter.  So  in  the  fish- 
eries it  is  not  stress  of  weather  alone  ^  hich  obliges  the 
laborer  to  lie  idle  portions  of  the  year,  but  in  part  the  re- 
productive necessities  of  the  fish.  In  other  instances  it  is 
the  force  of  the  seasons  alone  which  makes  employment 
irregular,  as  for  example  in  the  brickmaking,1  quarrying, 
carpentering,  house-painting,  and  sundry  other  out-door 
trades. 

The  loss  of  time  from  sickness,  as  shown  by  the  statis- 
tics of  friendly  societies  and  by  other  evidence,  varies 
greatly  in  different  localities  and  occupations  :  an  element 
that  can  not  properly  be  excluded  from  the  discussion  of 
comparative  wages,  as  such  sickness  involves  not  only 
loss  of  labor,  but  also,  generally,  a  positive  expense  for  at- 
tendance and  medicine. 

The  following  table  from  Mr.  Alex.  Glen  Finlaison's  re- 
port (1853)  on  sickness  and  mortality  in  friendly  societies, 
shows  the  experience  of  certain  large  groups  of  occupa- 
tions in  this  respect : 


LIGHT.  LABOR. 

HEAVY  LABOR. 

AGE. 

Without  ex- 

With expo- 

Without ex- 

With expo- 

posure to  the 
weather. 

sure  to  the 
weather. 

posure  to  the 
weather. 

sure  to  the 
weather. 

Days  lost. 

Days  lost. 

Days  lost. 

Days  lost. 

20 

6.48 

6.00 

6.71 

7.16 

25 

6.00 

5.78 

6  82 

7.45 

30 

6.01 

5.85 

7.06 

7.69 

35 

6.20 

5.84 

7.45 

8.04 

40 

7.13 

7.29 

8.03 

9.40 

45 

8.03 

7.4S 

9.87 

10.78 

50 

10.48 

10.02 

12.15 

12.58 

55 

13.65 

10.66 

16.08 

14.33 

60 

17.18 

11.23 

20.36 

21.78 

65 

26.22 

18.15 

26.99 

31.55 

1  In  brickmaking,  in  England,  it  is  estimated  that  men  can  be  em- 
ployed but  45  weeks  in  the  year,  in  consequence  of  rain  and  frost.  In 
the  Northern  States  of  America  the  failure  of  employment  is  for  a 
much  longer  period. 


LOSS  OF  TIME  BY  HOLIDAYS.  2ft 

What  we  call  social  causes  in  restriction  of  employ* 
ment  include  the  habits  of  a  community  respecting  festiv- 
ities and  religious  observances.1  Yauban  estimated  the 
loss  of  labor  in  France  from  fete  days  and  Sundays  at  90 
days  in  the  year.  In  some  Catholic  countries  the  holidays 
more  or  less  scrupulously  observed  exceed,  including  Sun« 
day,  one  hundred.  Among  the  Hindoos  they  are  said  to 
consume  nearly  half  the  year.  It  is  doubtless  true  that 
poverty  sometimes  joins  with  superstition8  in  imposing 
excessive  fasts,  and  the  want  of  work  may  account  for 
the  readiness  with  which  a  population  surrenders  itself 
to  celebrating  the  virtues  of  a  saint ;  yet  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  a  force  not  industrial  operates  in  some 
countries  in  reduction  of  the  number  of  days  of  labor. 
A  very  common  multiplier  taken  in  England  and  the 
United  States  in  reckoning  annual  earnings  is  300 ;  yet 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  is  an  exaggeration. 

But  there  are  also  industrial  causes  of  a  general  nature 


1  Mr.  Lecky  remarks  of  holidays  in  Catholic  countries  :  "  The  num- 
ber that  are  compulsory  has  been  grossly  exaggerated." — History  of 
Rationalism,  ii.  323. 

Diplomatic  and  consular  reports  to  the  British  Government  give 
perhaps  the  most  recent  and  exact  information  on  the  subject  of  holi- 
days in  the  Greek  Church. 

Consul  Calvert  reports  from  Montastir  that,  reckoning  Sundays, 
there  are  more  than  one  hundred  days  in  the  year  when  the  Christians 
voluntarily  cease  work  (1870,  p.  244).  Consul  Stuart  states  the  number 
of  days  besides  Sundays  which  the  Eastern  Church  attempts  to  with- 
draw from  labor  at  48.  Formerly,  he  says,  the  number  was  greater ; 
but  the  opposition  of  the  working  classes  to  the  loss  of  so  much  time 
has  caused  a  reduction  in  this  respect,  which  will  doubtless  proceed 
further  (1871,  p.  780).  Mr.  Gould  gives  the  number  of  working  days 
in  Greece  as  265  (1870,  p.  500).  Consul  Sand  with  gives  the  number  of 
fete  days  in  Crete  as  30  (1872,  p.  382).  Consul  Egerton  states  that  in 
Russia  "  besides  Sundays  there  are  about  24  holidays  in  the  year, 
when  no  work  is  allowed.  Some  are  saints'  days  ;  others,  state  holi- 
days" (1873,  p.  111). 

8  Gibbon,  chap,  xlvii.,  of  the  Jacobites,  whose  five  annual  Lenta 
the  historian  is  disposed  to  regard  as  an  instance  of  "  making  a  virtue 
of  necessity." 


30  THE  WAGES  QUESTION'. 

which  of  late  years  are  operating  more  and  more  to  inter- 
rupt the  continuity  of  production  and  render  employment 
precarious.  These  causes,  though  general  in  their  origin, 
do  yet  affect  localities  and  occupations  very  diversely,  in- 
troducing thus  a  new  element  of  great  difficulty  into  the 
problem  of  wages.  Thus  there  is  no  reason  from  the  nature 
of  the  operations  involved,  why  cotton-spinning  should  not 
proceed  equably  through  all  the  months  of  the  year,  but  in 
fact  the  demands  of  modern  trade  require  that  periods  of 
heavy  production  shall  alternate  with  periods  of  dulness 
and  depression.1  In  the  same  way  the  aggregation  of  vast 
numbers  of  workmen  into  factories  for  the  manufacture  of 
boots  and  shoes  has  introduced  an  irregularity  into  that 
branch  of  manufacture  which  did  not  exist  when  it  was 
confined  to  the  small  shop  where  the  master  worked  with  an 
apprentice  and  perhaps  a  journeyman,  and  made  goods  for 
a  well-defined  and  permanent  body  of  customers. 

Among  the  industrial  causes  which  introduce  this  dis- 
turbance into  the  employment  of  labor  must  of  course  be 
included  strikes  and  lock-outs.  Dr.  John  Watts  has  fur- 
nished some  very  instructive  computations  as  to  the  first 
cost  of  strikes.  Thus,  assuming  five  per  cent  addition  to 
existing  wages  to  be  the  matter  in  dispute  between  the 
employer  and  the  laborer,  he  shows  that  if  the  strike 
succeeds  its  results  will  be,  roughly  speaking,  as  follows  :a 

1  Mr.  Dudley  Baxter,  speaking  of  the  operatives  in  this  branch  of 
industry,  wrote  :  "  We  all  know  their  periodical  distresses.     It  may  be 
said  that  these  were  accidents.     They  are  not  mere  accidents,  but  inci- 
dents— natural  incidents  of  our  manufacturing  economy.     They  are 
sure  to  recur  under  different  forms,  either  from  gluts,  or  strikes,  or  war, 
and  they  must  be  allowed  for  in  computations  of  earnings." — National 
Income,  p.  45. 

"In  1829  the  weavers  of  Lancashire  and  Cheshire  were  earning, 
at  best,  from  4s.  4^d.  to  6s.  per  week  when  at  work.  The  most 
favored  had  to  wait  a  week  or  two  between  one  piece  of  work  and  the 
next ;  and  about  a  fourth  of  the  whole  number  were  out  of  employ- 
altogether." — Martineau,  History  of  England,  iii.  167. 

2  Statistical  Journal,  xxiv.  501.    I  have  sought  to  show  elsewhere 
(p.  391,  n.)  that  all  the  time  occupied  by  a  strike  is  not  necessarily  lost. 


LOSS  OF  TIME  BY  STRIKES.  81 

Years  of 
the  extr 

The  loss  of  1  lunar  month's  wages  will  require  to  make  it  up, 
«        «     2  "  "  •'  "  «« 


Years  of  work  at 
the  extra  rate. 


"  The  strike  of  the  London  builders  in  1859  was  for  10 
per  cent  of  time  or  its  equivalent,  10  per  cent  of  wages  ; 
and  as  it  lasted  26  weeks,  would,  if  successful,  have  re- 
quired lOf  years  of  continuous  work  at  the  extra  rate  to 
make  up  the  loss  of  wages  sacrificed.  The  amount  in  dis- 
pute between  the  weavers  of  Colne  and  their  employers 
did  not  average  more  than  3£  per  cent,  and  had  the  strike 
been  successful,  would  have  required  more  than  28  years 
continuous  employment  at  the  advance  to  make  up  the 
amount  of  wages  lost,  by  which  time  the  lost  wages  would, 
at  5  per  cent  (interest),  have  quadrupled."  This  Colne 
strike  lasted  50  weeks  ;  the  great  Preston  strike,  38  weeks  ; 
the  Padiham  strike,  29  weeks. 

Computations  like  these  do  not  of  themselves  show  that 
strikes  can  not  advantage  the  working  classes,  but  they  do 
show  the  necessity  of  taking  such  elements  into  account  in 
reducing  nominal  to  real  wages. 

The  joint  effect  of  all  the  causes  enumerated  as  affect- 
ing the  regularity  of  employment  is  very  considerable. 
Prof.  Leone  Levi,  in  his  treatise  on  Wages,1  estimates  the 
lost  time  of  all  the  persons  returned  as  pursuing  gainful 
occupations  in  England  to  be  4  weeks  in  the  year,  and 
deems  this  loss  covered  by  the  exclusion  of  all  persons 
over  60  years  of  age,  leaving  those  below  employed  full 
time.  To  this  Mr.  Dudley  Baxter,  in  his  admirable 
work  on  "  National  Income,"2  rejoins  that  if  this  were 
so,  there  would  be  no  able-bodied  paupers  in  England. 
Mr.  Baxter  goes  forward  to  show  the  inadequacy  of 
Prof.  Levi's  estimate  in  terms  which  I  shall  do  weD  to 
quote  : 

"  I  will  take  a  good  average  instance  (and  a  very  large 

'P.  5.  '  Pp.  41,  42. 


32  THE  WAGES  QUESTION". 

one)  of  the  way  in  which  wages  are  earned  in  the  building 
trades.  Thess  trades  form  a  whole,  and  include  carpen- 
ters, bricklayers,  masons,  plasterers,  painters,  and  plumbers, 
and  number  in  England  and  Wales  about  387,000  men 
above  twenty  years  of  age.  It  is  only  the  best  men,  work- 
ing with  the  best  masters,  that  are  always  sure  of  full  time. 
These  trades  work  on  the  hour  system,  introduced  at  the 
instance  of  the  men  themselves,  but  a  system  of  great 
precariousness  of  employment.  The  large  masters  give 
regular  wages  to  their  good  workmen,  but  the  smaller  mas- 
ters, especially  at  the  east  end  of  London,  engage  a  large 
proportion  of  their  hands  only  for  the  job,  and  then  at 
once  pay  them  off.  All  masters  when  work  grows  slack 
immediately  discharge  the  inferior  hands  and  the  unsteady 
men — of  whom  there  are  but  too  many  among  clever  work- 
men— and  do  not  take  them  on  again  until  work  revives. 
In  bad  times  there  are  always  a  large  number  out  of  em- 
ployment. In  prosperity  much  time  is  lost  by  keeping 
Saint  Monday  and  by  occasional  strikes.  Let  us  turn  to 
another  great  branch  of  industry,  the  agricultural  labor- 
ers, whose  numbers  are :  men,  650,000  ;  boys,  190,000  ;  wo- 
men, 126,000 ;  and  girls,  36,000.  Continuous  employment 
has  largely  increased  since  the  new  Poor  Law  of  1834,  and 
good  farmers  now  employ  their  men  regularly.  But  in 
many  places  such  is  not  the  custom.  Near  Broadstairs,  in 
Kent,  I  was  told  that,  on  an  average,  laborers  were  only 
employed  40  weeks  in  the  year.  Mr.  Purdy's  figures  of 
the  influence  of  the  seasons  on  agricultural  employment 
show  that  the  wages  paid  in  the  second  quarter  of  the  year, 
on  a  large  estate  in  Notts,  were  20  per  cent  more  than  in 
the  first  quarter.  In  the  harvest  quarter  they  were  more 
than  double.  He  also  mentions  the  significant  fact  that 
the  pauperism  of  the  five  most  agrarian  divisions  of  Eng- 
land is  greater  in  February  than  in  August  by  425,000 
against  370,000,  or  55,000  persons.  These  55,000  repre- 
sent a  great  prevalence  of  the  custom  of  turning  off  labor- 
ers at  the  slack  season.  So  that  even  so  far  as  the  men 


DURATION  OF  LABORING  POWER.  33 

are  concerned,  there  must  evidently  be  a  large  deduction 
for  time  out  of  work.  But  when  we  come  to  boy  sand  wo- 
men, the  case  is  still  stronger.  I  found  in  Kent  and  other 
places  that  boys'  and  women's  employment  is  very  irregu- 
lar, and  that  they  are  not  at  work  more  than  half  their 
time ;  in  fact,  they  are  only  employed  as  supernumeraries  to 
the  men,  and  only  taken  on  at  busy  times." 

Y.  Still  further,  Nominal  and  Keal  Wages  may  be  made 
to  differ  through  the  longer  or  shorter  duration  of  the 
power  to  labor. 

We  have  seen  that  it  is  not  what  the  laborer  obtains  for 
a  single  day  of  the  week  or  a  single  month  of  the  year 
which,  fixes  his  real  remuneration,  but  that  regularity  of 
employment  from  month  to  month  and  quarter  to  quarter 
is  a  most  important  element  in  the  wages  problem.  But 
neither  is  it  what  the  workman  receives  in  a  single  year  or 
in  a  term  of  years  which  alone  can  determine  the  question 
of  high  or  low  wages.  We  need,  besides,  to  know  the  to- 
tal duration  of  his  laboring  power,  that  we  may  be  able  to 
compare  the  term  of  his  productive  with  that  of  his  unpro- 
ductive life. 

It  is  evident,  supposing  two  persons  begin  to  labor 
productively  at  fifteen  years  of  age,  and  continue  actively 
at  work,  with  the  same  rate  of  nominal  wages,  until  death, 
that  the  one  receives  a  higher  real  remuneration  who  lives 
the  longer,  since  the  cost  of  his  maintenance  during  the 
first  15  years  of  helpless  life  must,  in  any  philosophical 
view  of  the  subject,  be  charged  upon  his  wages1  during 

1  The  cost,  at  contract  prices,  of  raising  an  orphan  child  to  the  age 
of  11,  is  computed  by  Mr.  Chadwick  (Statistical  Journal,  xxv.  505)  at 
£130,  or  the  value  of  a  team  of  four  first-class  farm-horses. 

The  same  eminent  authority  estimates  the  average  loss  of  working 
ability,  by  premature  deaths  from  preventible  causes,  to  be  at  least  10 
years  (Stat.  Journal,  xxviii.  26). 

"  In  the  production  of  dead  machinery,"  says  Dr.  Edward  Jarvis, "  the 
cost  of  all  that  are  broken  in  the  making  is  charged  to  the  cost  of  all 

which  are  completed So,  in  estimating  the  cost  of  raising 

children  to  manhood,  it  is  necessary  to  include  the  number  of  years 


34  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

his  period  of  labor.  It  is  true  that  the  expense  was,  in 
fact,  borne  by  his  parents,  while  he  will  himself  bear  the 
cost  of  the  maintenance,  in  childhood,  of  his  own  offspring ; 
but  no  one  will,  I  believe,  question  that,  in  the  economical 
sense,  the  support  of  each  generation  of  laborers  should  be 
charged  against  its  own  wages,1  just  as  truly  as  that  a  far- 
mer, in  solving  the  question  whether  a  cow  dying  at  a 
certain  age  had  paid  for  herself,  would  set  against  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  sales  of  her  milk  or  butter  the  expense  of 
rearing  her. 

If  this  principle  of  estimating  the  wages  of  a  lifetime 
be  accepted  as  just,  its  great  practical  importance  will  not 
be  denied. 

And  first  in  comparison  of  nations. 

In  a  paper  on  the  Political  Economy  of  Health,  Dr. 
Edward  Jarvis  has  given  some  most  instructive  tables 
which  can  not  be  better  introduced  than  in  the  language 
of  the  British  Poor-Law  Commissioners  of  1842  :a  "  The 
strength  of  a  people  does  not  depend  on  the  absolute  num- 
ber of  its  population,  but  on  the  relative  number  of  those 
who  are  of  the  age  and  strength  to  labor." 

The  following  table8  shows  the  number  of  years  spent 
under  20  for  every  100  persons  attaining  that  age  : 


COUNTRY. 

Years  spent  under  20. 

Per  cent  of  loss. 

2142 
2182 
2192 
2251 
2327 
2514 

7.1 
9.1 
9.6 
12.55 
16.35 
25.70 

United  States  

France  

that  have  been  lived  by  those  that  fell  by  the  way  with  the  years 
of  those  that  pass  successfully  through  the  period  of  development." — 
Report  Massachusetts  Board  of  Health,  1874,  p.  340. 

1 "  Le  salaire  d'un  ouvrier  doit  comprendre  ....  ramortisse- 
ment  du  capital  employe  par  ses  parents,  avec  lequel  il  peut  alimenter 
eon  enfant  qui  le  remplacera  un  jour  dans  la  societe." — Jos.  Gamier, 
Traite  d'ficonomie  Politique,  p.  462. 

9  P.  184.       3  Report  Mass.  State  Board  of  Health,  1874,  pp.  341,  342. 


DURATION'  OF  LABORING  POWER. 


35 


Again,  the  Life  Tables  of  the  several  States  show  the 
average  number  of  years  lived  after  the  age  of  20  to  be  as 
follows : 


COUNTRY. 

YEARS. 

COUNTRY. 

YEARS. 

Norway  

39.61 

England 

35  55 

38.10 

France  

32  84 

United  States  (Males) 

37.46 

28.88 

Hanover  

35.81 

"  Thus  the  productive  efficiency  fell  short  of  its  fulness1 
20.78  per  cent  in  Norway ;  23.7  per  cent  in  Sweden ; 
25.08  per  cent  in  the  United  States ;  28.38  per  cent  in 
Germany ;  28.9  per  cent  in  England ;  34.3  per  cent  in 
France,  and  42.24  per  cent  in  Ireland." 

Again  Dr.  Jarvds  says,  "  Having  the  number  that  are 
lost  in  the  maturing  period  and  the  number  of  years  they 
have  lived,  and  also  the  number  that  die  in  the  effective 
stage  and  the  duration  of  their  labors,  it  is  easy  to  draw 
a  comparison  between  them  and  show  the  cost,  in  years,  of 
creating  and  maturing  human  power,  and  the  return  it 
makes  in  labor  in  compensation.  By  this  double  measure- 
ment of  life  in  its  incompleteness  and  in  its  fulness  it  is 
found  that  for  every  1000  years  expended  in  the  develop- 
ing period  upon  all  that  are  born,  both  those  who  die  and 
those  who  survive  the  period  from  birth  to  20,  the  conse- 
quent laboring  and  productive  years  are :  In  Norway, 
1881  years;  in  Sweden,  1749  years;  in  England,  1088 
years ;  in  the  United  States,  1664  years ;  in  France,  1398 
years ;  and  in  Ireland,  1148  years." 

But  it  is  not  only  between  the  populations  of  distinct 
countries  that  such  differences  in  the  duration  of  the 
economic  force  appear.  Important  differences  in  this  re- 
spect are  shown  by  mortuary  statistics  to  exist  between 
occupations.  Thus  the  excessive  mortality  of  the  "  dusty 


1 50  years,  i.e.  from  20  to  70  years  of  age. 


3G  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

trades"  lias  long  been  the  subject  of  scientific  and  official 
inquiry.  The  highly  injurious  effects  upon  the  lungs  of 
the  dust  of  cotton  and  flax  mingled  with  "  China  clay" 
and  other  poisonous  ingredients,  producing  a  haze  in  the 
atmosphere  of  some  factories,  and  rising  in  a  palpable  cloud 
in  others,  have  been  thoroughly  investigated  and  exposed 
by  Drs.  Hirt1  and  Buchanan.2  In  the  "  dry-grinding"  of 
the  metals,  the  deadly  influences  are  even  more  positive.3 
The  following  description  of  the  steel-dust  in  a  needle-fac- 
tory will  suffice  for  our  present  purpose  of  illustration. 
"  I  smelt  the  dust  from  one  such  manufactory  before  I  was 
within  70  or  80  yards  of  it,  and  though  in  an  open  field  ; 
and  I  could  see  the  dust  floating  away  like  a  cloud.  It 
not  only  covers  the  roof  and  windows  on  which  it  settles 
with  a  brown  rusty  coat,  till  in  time  the  glass  becomes  ob- 
scured almost  as  if  it  were  painted,  but  so  corrodes  them 
as  to  make  the  slates  and  even  the  glass  crumble  away. 
The  dust  collects  in  the  flues  which  carry  it  from  the 
stove  in  large  black  stalactite-like  lumps.  Two  such  were 
given  me,  weighing  over  two  pounds  each."4 

Mining  may  be  given  as  an  instance  of  an  occupation 
where  nominal  wages  must  be  heavily  discounted  by  rea- 
son of  its  destructive  effects  on  human  life.  When  it  is 
remembered  that  in  addition  to  the  great  liability  to  fatal 
accident,5  the  amount  of  carbonic  acid  gas,  which  in  nature 

1  Krankheiten  der  Arbeiter. 

2  Returns  to  the  order  of  the  House  of  Commons,  13th  May,  1872. 

8  See  the  evidence  collected  by  Mr.  Jellinger  Symons  under  the  Eng- 
lish Commission  of  1841 ;  also,  Dr.  Greenhow's  report  in  1860,  in  the 
Third  Report  of  the  Medical  Officer  of  the  Privy  Council. 

4  Report  of  Mr.  J.  E.  White,  Asst.  Commr.  Employment  of  Women 
and  Children,  1865. 

6  Sir  Thomas  Bazley's  report  for  1870  states  the  number  of  deaths 
from  accidents  in  collieries  and  ironstone  mines  at  991.  In  the  same 
year  373  persons  were  killed  in  works  under  the  Factory  acts  ;  1378 
were  so  injured  that  amputation  was  required,  while  the  lesser  inju- 
ries footed  up  16,828. 

"  En  France,  ces  accidents  sont  beaucoup  plus  rares,et  1'expl  citation 


MORTALITY  AMONG  OCCUPATIONS.  87 

is  300-350  in  1,000,000,  and  does  not  ordinarily  exceed 
3000  in  the  stifling  atmosphere  of  factories  and  workshops, 
often  goes  up  to  20,000  in  the  air  of  mines,1  the  exces- 
sive mortality  within  this  occupation  will  not  be  a  matter 
of  wonder.  Dr.  Scott  Allison  found  the  average  age  of 
the  living  male  heads  of  families  of  the  collier  population 
at  Tranent,  so  far  as  the  same  could  be  ascertained,  to  be 
34  years,  while  the  average  age  of  the  living  male  heads  of 
the  agricultural  families  was  nearly  52  years.  Dr.  Allison 
expressed  the  belief  that  these  proportions  would  serve  as 
fair  indications  of  the  relative  conditions  of  the  different 
populations.2 

"  So  considerable,"  says  Dr.  Neison,  in  a  recent  paper,* 
"  is  the  influence  of  occupation  that  the  mortality  in  one 
avocation  exceeds  that  of  another  by  as  much  as  230  per 
cent." 

Thus  taking  the  period  of  life  25  to  65,  Dr.  ISTeison  finds 
the  mean  mortality  in  the  clerical  profession  to  be  1.12  per 
cent ;  in  the  legal,  1.57 ;  in  the  medical,  1.81.  In  domestic 
service  the  mortality  among  gardeners  was  but  .93  ;  among 
grooms,  1.26 ;  among  servants,  1.6T ;  among  coachmen, 
1.84.  The  effect  of  out- door  exposure  in  all  kinds  of  weather 
is  here  shown  alike  in  the  case  of  the  physician  and  the 
coachman.  Of  several  branches  of  manufacture,  the  paper 
manufacture  showed  a  mean  mortality  of  1.45 ;  the  tin 
manufacture,  of  1.61 ;  the  iron  manufacture,  of  1.75 ;  the 
glass  manufacture,  of  1.83 ;  the  copper  manufacture,  of 
2.16  ;  the  lead  manufacture,  of  2.24  ;  the  earthenware  man- 
ufacture* of  2.57.  Among  the  different  kinds  of  mining 


des  mines  n'a  jamais  ete  raise  au  nombre  des  industries  qui  creent  une 
position  insupportable  aux  ouvriers." — Theodore  Fix,  Les  Claaaee 
Ouvrieres,  p.  146. 

1  Dr.  Angus  Smith,  Soc.  Sc.  Transactions,  1865,  p.  241. 

3  Report  of  the  Poor-Law  Commissioners  of  1842,  p.  200. 

3  Journal  of  the  Institute  of  Actuaries,  July,  1872,  p.  98. 

4  The  mortality  among  the  "  china-scourers"  is  something  fright- 
ful    '-'  In  all  *he  process  the  operatives  are  exposed  to  the  inhaling  of 


38  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

industry  the  range  is  even  greater.  Thus  the  mean  mor- 
tality of  iron-miners  is  1.80  ;  of  coal-miners,  1.82  ;  of  tin- 
miners,  1.99 ;  of  lead-miners,  2.50  * ;  of  copper-miners, 
3.17.9 

But  it  is  not  alone  by  death  that  the  laboring  power  is 
prematurely  destroyed.  The  agricultural  laborer  of  Eng- 
land, for  example,  who  is  long  lived,  often  becomes  crip- 
pled early  by  rheumatism  due  to  exposure  and  privation. 
"  Then  he  has  to  work  for  4  shillings  or  5  shillings  per 
week,  supplemented  scantily  from  the  rates,  and  at  last  to 
come,  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  on  the  rates  altogether.  Such 
is,  I  will  not  call  it  the  life,  but  the  existence  or  vegetation, 
of  the  Devon  peasant.  He  hardly  can  keep  soul  and  body 
together."3 

In  the  same  country,  Mr.  Dudley  Baxter  states,  there  are 
40,000  men  out  of  less  than  400,000  in  the  building  trades 
who  between  55  and  65  are  considered  as  past  hard  work. 
In  other  trades,  he  says,  a  man  is  disabled  at  55  or  50.  A 
coal-backer  is  considered  past  work  at  40.4 

I  can  not  better  close  this  protracted  chapter  than  with 
the  following  words  taken  from  the  address  of  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote,  as  President  of  the  British  Social  Science  Asso- 
ciation :  "  A  man  who  earns  a  pound  a  week  is  not  neces- 
sarily twice  as  well  off  as  a  man  who  earns  10  shillings. 

the  fine  dust  with  which  the  air  of  the  different  workshops  is  charged, 
and  which  dust  the  finer  it  is  the  longer  it  floats  in  the  atmosphere 
and  the  more  dangerous  it  becomes." — Ibid.,  p.  109. 

1 "  The  diseases  engendered  by  lead-mining  may  be  stated  as  asthma 
and  chronic  bronchitis." — Ibid.,  p.  103. 

a  The  heat  in  copper-mines  was  found  by  Dr.  Greenhow  to  be  very 
much  greater  than  in  tin-mines.  In  one  mine  which  he  visited  the 
temperature  was  125°.  "Steam  was  coming  out  of  the  shaft  in 
volumes  at  the  time  of  inspection." 

8  Letter  of  Canon  Girdlestone  to  Mr.  Heath,  "Peasantry  of  Eng> 
laud,"  p.  100. 
4  National  Income,  pp.  41,  43. 


NOMINAL  AND  REAL   WAOE8.  89 

You  must  take  into  account  the  amount  of  work  which 
they  respectively  have  to  do  for  their  money,  the  number 
of  hours  they  are  employed,  the  amount  of  strain  upon  the 
body  and  on  the  brain,  the  chance  of  accident,  the  general 
effect  upon  the  health  and  upon  the  duration  of  life."1 

1  Transactions,  1869,  p.  18. 


CHAPTEK  III. 

NOMINAL  AND  REAL  COST  OF  LABOR. 

ANOTHER  distinction  which  needs  to  be  strongly  marked 
is  that  between  Wages  and  the  Cost  of  Labor. 

In  treating  wages  as  high  or  low  we  occupy  the  laborer's 
point  of  view  ;  in  treating  the  cost  of  labor  as  high  or  low 
we  occupy  the  point  of  view  of  the  employer.  "Wages  are 
high  or  low  according  to  the  abundance  or  scantiness  of  the 
necessaries,  comforts,  and  luxuries  of  life  which  the  laborer 
can  command,  without  particular  reference  to  the  value  of 
the  service  which  he  renders  to  the  employer  therefor. 
The  cost  of  labor,  on  the  other  hand,  is  high  or  low  accord- 
ing as  the  employer  gets  an  ample  or  a  scanty  return  for 
what  he  pays  the  laborer,  whether  the  same  be  expressed 
in  money  or  in  commodities  for  consumption,  and  this 
without  the  least  respect  to  the  well-being  of  the  laborer. 

Now  this  distinction  is  not  of  importance  merely  because 
such  a  distinction  can  be  drawn,  and  the  same  object  look- 
ed at  from  different  points  of  view.  Not  only  are  the 
points  of  view  here  diametrically  opposed,  but  the  objects 
contemplated  are  not  necessarily  the  same,  so  that  high 
wages  do  not  imply  a  high  cost  of  labor,  or  low  wages  a  low 
cost  of  labor.  A  sufficient  demonstration  of  this,  for  the 
present  moment,  is  found  in  the  well-known  fact  that  em- 
ployers usually  take  on  their  lowest-paid  laborers  last,  and 


NOMINAL  AND  REAL  COST  OF  LABOR.  41 

discharge  them  first.1     The  explanation  is  found  in  the 
varying 

EFFICIENCY   OF    LABOR. 

The  extent  to  which  this  consideration  is  popularly  neg- 
lected may  be  seen  by  recurring  to  any  discussion  of  the 
question  of  "  protection,"  whether  in  the  legislature  or  in 
the  public  press.  A  day's  labor  is  almost  universally  taken 
as  the  unit  of  measure  in  determining  the  cost  of  similar 
products  in  different  countries.  In  fact,  "  a  day's  labor" 
conveys  scarcely  a  more  definite  idea  than  the  boy's  com- 
parison, "  big  as  a  piece  of  chalk,"  or  "  long  as  a  string." 
The  mere  announcement  that  a  day's  labor  can  fie  had  in 
one  country  for  10  cents,  in  another  for  50,  while  in  a  third 
it  commands  $1.50,  conveys  to  the  mind  of  one  familiar 
with  the  statistics  of  industry  not  even  an  impression  as  to 
the  comparative  cost  of  labor  in  the  several  countries.  Yet 
it  has  been  held  by  a  large  party  in  the  United  States  to 
be  conclusive  of  the  question  of  "  protection,"  that  labor- 
ers in  other  countries  are  more  scantily  remunerated  than 
in  our  own.  The  avowed  object  of  protective  tariffs  here 
has  been  to  keep  wages  from  sinking  to  the  level  of  Europe 
and  Asia.  The  allusions  to  "  pauper  labor"  which  crowd 
the  speeches  of  Clay,  Stewart,  and  Kelley  have  sig- 
nificance only  as  it  is  assumed  that  a  day's  labor  in  one 
place  is  the  economical  equivalent  of  a  day's  labor  any- 
where, and  that  one  man's  labor  is  effective  in  the  same 
degree  as  that  of  any  other  man. 

It  is,  however,  very  far  from  the  truth  that  a  day's  labor 
is  always  and  everywhere  the  same  thing.  We  can 
scarcely  take  the  estimate  adopted  by  Lord  Mahon,9  that 

1  Masters  "  prefer  those  laborers  who  earn  the  most  wages." — Mr. 
Chadwick,  Statistical  Journal,  xxv.  510. 

Sir  Joseph  Whitworth,  the  great  manufacturer  of  cannon,  told  Mr. 
Chadwick  that  "  he  could  not  afford  to  work  his  machines  with  a  horse 
that  cost  less  than  £30."— Ibid. 

2  History  of  England,  vii.,  pp.  229,330. 


42  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

an  English  wood-sawyer  will  perform  as  much  work  in  the 
same  time  as  thirty-two  East-Indians,  as  giving  the  general 
ratio1  between  labor  in  the  two  countries ;  yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  comparison  is  not  absolutely  an  extreme 
one.  The  difference  between  an  English  woodsawyer, 
before  a  pile  of  hickory  cordwood,  and  an  effeminate  East- 
Indian,  accustomed  to  think  it  a  day's  job  to  saw  off  a 
few  lengths  of  bamboo,  is  not  so  great  as  that  which  would 
exist  between  a  Maine  mast-man  and  a  Bengalee  at  the 
foot  of  a  40-inch  pine.  The  one  would  lay  the  monster 
low  in  half  a  day,  the  other  might  peck  at  it  a  week  and 
scarcely  get  through  the  bark.  In  the  contests  of  industry 
the  civilized,  organized,  disciplined,  and  highly-equipped 
nations  may  safely  entertain  much  the  same  contempt  for 
barbarous  antagonists  as  in  the  contests  of  war.  "  The  wolf 
cares  not  how  many  the  sheep  be,"  said  one  conqueror ; 
"  The  thicker  the  grass,"  said  another,  "  the  easier  it  is 
mown."  So  vast  are  the  differences  in  this  matter  of  the 
efficiency  of  labor  that  it  is  difficult  to  write  respecting 
them  without  producing  the  impression  of  a  disposition  to 
exaggerate,  if  the  reader  has  not  specially  studied  the  con- 
ditions of  production  and  is  unacquainted  with  the  statis- 
tics of  industry.  Yet  in  sober  earnest  we  may  borrow  the 
language  of  Edmund  Burke  respecting  the  political  adapt- 
ations of  men,  and  say  that,  in  industry  as  in  government, 
men  of  different  nationalities  may  be  regarded  as  so  many 
different  kinds  of  animals. 

The  testimony  to  the  varying  efficiency  of  labor  comes 

1  Prof.  Senior,  in  his  Lectures  on  Wages,  stated  the  average  annual 
wages  of  labor  in  Hindostan  at  from  one  pound  to  two  pounds  troy  of 

silver  against  nine  pounds  to  fifteen  pounds  troy  in  England 

Mr.  Finnic,  who  was  engaged  by  the  Madras  Government  as  superin- 
tendent of  the  cotton  experiment  from  1845-9,  says,  "  the  interest  of 
the  money  invested  in  the  purchase  of  a  laborer  in  America,  added  to 
the  actual  cost  of  his  maintenance,  would  pay  for  nine  able-bodied  men 
in  India."— Wheeler's  Cotton  Cultivation,  p.  100. 


NATIONALITY  IN  LABOR.  43 

from  so  many  sources  that  our  only  difficulty  is  that  of 
selection.  The  comparison  of  the  English  with  the  Irish 
laborer,  whether  as  a  cottar  tenant  at  home  or  working 
for  hire  in  the  northern  counties  of  England,  used  to  be  a 
favorite  one  with  economists  before  the  famine  and  the 
emigration.  Of  late  this  disparagement  of  Irish  labor  has 
become  infrequent.  In  the  last  century  Arthur  Young, 
the  eminent  traveller,  who  spent  two  years  near  Cork  as 
the  manager  of  a  large  estate,  declared  an  Essex  laborer  at 
2  shillings  6  pence  a  day  to  be  cheaper  than  a  Tipperary 
laborer  at  5  pence.  The  improvement  in  the  condition  of 
the  Irish  peasant  and  in  the  methods  of  industry  in  Ireland 
was  very  marked  in  the  seventy  years  which  next  follow- 
ed ;  but  in  1845  Dr.  Kane,  in  his  work  on  the  Industrial 
Resources  of  that  country,  placed  the  number  of  native 
laborers  requisite  for  a  given  production  at  two  or  more 
where  one  English  laborer  wrould  suffice  (pp.  397-9).  In 
the  iron  manufacture  he  gives  the  ratio  as  three  to  one. 

In  the  same  manner  the  Russian  serf  was,  up  to  the  time 
of  the  Emancipation,  often  adduced  as  illustrating  the  low 
efficiency  of  brutalized  and  underfed  labor.  Thus  Prof. 
Jones  says :  "  In  spite  of  the  dearness  of  provisions  in 
England  and  their  cheapness  in  Russia,  the  mowing  a  quan- 
tity of  hay  which  would  cost  an  English  farmer  half  a 
copeck,  will  cost  a  Russian  farmer  three  or  four  copecks." 

But  it  is  not  only  in  comparison  with  the  oppressed 
laborers  of  Ireland  and  with  the  serfs  of  Russia  that  the 
superiority  of  English  labor  has  been  asserted  on  high 
authority.  Mr.  Edwin  Rose,  long  employed  as  an  operative 
engineer  in  France  and  Germany,  testified  before  the  Fac- 
tory Commission,  forty  years  and  more  ago,  that  it  required 
fully  twice  as  many  hands  to  perform  most  kinds  of  fac- 
tory work  in  France  and  Switzerland  as  in  England  ;  and 
the  statistics  of  per  capita  product  and  of  the  ratio  between 
hands  and  machines  amply  bore  out  Mr.  Rose's  statement. 
The  estimate  of  Mr.  Briavoinne,  founded  on  the  total  pro- 
duction of  Belgium,  gave  116  pieces  of  cloth  printed  foi 


44  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

each  workman  per  annum.  The  production  of  certain 
establishments,  however,  was  estimated  as  high  as  300 
pieces.  At  the  same  time  the  workmen  of  the  great 
establishment  of  Ainsworth  &  Co.,  in  England,  were  turn- 
ing out  1000  pieces  per  head.  In  cotton-spinning,  again, 
we  find  from  the  best  international  statistics  available  that 
the  number  of  spindles  attended  by  a  single  operative  to-day 
in  England  ranges  from  two  to  four  times  the  correspond- 
ing number  on  the  Continent.1  The  statistics  of  the  iron 
industry  of  France  show  that  on  the  average  42  men  are 
employed  to  do  the  same  work  in  smelting  pig  iron,  as  is 
done  by  25  men  at  the  Clarence  Factories  on  the  Tees. 
And  so  it  comes  about  that,  while  wages  are  higher  in 
England  than  in  any  other  country  of  Europe,  English 
manufactures  have  to  be  excluded  by  heavy  duties  from 
competition  with  the  so-called  cheaper  labor2  of  the  Con- 
tinent. 

1 "  In  the  weaving-mills  a  Russian  rarely  has  the  care  of  more 
than  two  looms,  while  in  England  a  weaver  will  frequently  look 
after  six."  (Report  of  H.  B.  M.  Consul  Egerton  on  the  Factory 
System  of  Russia,  1873,  p.  111.)  Mr.  Batbie  states  that  the  English 
farmers  on  the  shores  of  the  Hellespont  prefer  to  give  10  pounds 
sterling  a  year  for  Greek  laborers  to  giving  3  pounds  for  Turk- 
ish laborers.  (Nouveau  Cours  de  1'Economie,  i.  73.)  Even  with  the 
best  Continental  labor  there  is  a  decided  inferiority  to  English 
rates  of  production.  In  Switzerland  the  number  of  hands  employed 
per  1000  spindles  does  not  average  less  than  8  to  8£,  against  7  in  Eng- 
land. (Report  of  Mr.  Gould  on  the  Factory  System  of  Switzerland, 
1873,  p.  129.) 

In  England,  moreover,  it  should  be  noted,  the  machinery  is  almost 
uniformly  run  at  a  speed  not  known  on  the  Continent. 

8  Whereas  female  labor  in  the  cotton  manufacture  is  paid  at  from 
12*.  to  15s.  a  week  in  Great  Britain ;  at  from  7*.  Sd.  to  9s.  7d.  in 
France,  Belgium,  and  Germany ;  at  from  2s.  4d.  to  2s.  lid.  in  Rus- 
sia, the  one  thing  which  is  most  dreaded  by  the  Continental  manufac- 
turers everywhere  is  British  competition.  The  demand  for  protection 
is  loudest  in  France,  Austria,  and  Russia,  where  the  average  wages 
reach  their  minimum.  .  .  . 

The  average  price  of  labor  per  day  for  puddlers  is  7s.  6d.  to  7s. 
IQd.  in  Staffordshire ;  6*.  4d.  in  France ;  and  from  4s.  Id.  to  5s.  in 


NATIONALITY  IN  LABOR.  45 

But  by  far  the  most  important  body  of  evidence  on  the 
varying  efficiency  of  labor  is  contained  in  the  treatise  of 
Mr.  Thomas  Brassey,  M.P.,  entitled  "  Work  and  Wages," 
published  in  1872.  Mr.  Brassey's  father  was  perhaps  the 
greatest  "  captain  of  industry''  the  world  has  ever  seen, 
having  been  engaged,  between  1834  and  1870,  in  the  con- 
struction of  railways  in  England,  France,  Saxony,  Austria, 
Hungary,  Moldavia,  Belgium,  Italy,  Spain,  Canada,  Aus- 
tralia, the  Argentine  Eepublic,  Syria,  Persia,  and  India. 
"  There  were  periods  in  his  career,"  says  Sir  Arthur  Helps,1 
"  during  which  he  and  his  partners  were  giving  employ- 
ment to  80,000,  upon  works  requiring  seventeen  millions 
(sterling)  of  capital  for  their  completion."  The  aggregate 
length  of  the  railways  thus  constructed  appears  to  have  ex- 
ceeded six  thousand  five  hundred  miles.  The  chief  value 
of  Mr.  Brassey,  Jr.'s  work  is  derived  from  his  possession 
of  the  full  and  authentic  labor-accounts  of  his  father's 
transactions.  "  Frenchmen,  Belgians,  Germans,  Italians, 
Russians,  Spaniards,  and  Danes  came  under  the  close  in- 
spection of  Mr.  Brassey  and  his  agents ;  and  we  are  told 
how  the  men  of  these  various  nationalities  acquitted  them- 
selves in  their  respective  employments."2  Some  of  the 
results  of  this  vast  experiment  of  labor  are  given  by  Mr. 
Brassey,  Jr.,  in  his  chapter  on  the  Cost  of  Labor. 

On  the  Grand  Trunk  Railway  of  Canada  the  French- 
Canadian  laborers  received  3s.  6d.  a  day,  while  the 
Englishmen  received  from  5s.  to  6s.  a  day  ;  "  but  it  was 
found  that  the  English  did  the  greatest  amount  of  work 
for  the  money."3 

Contrasting  the  wages  paid  on  an  English  railway,  3*. 
to  3s.  6d.  a  day,  with  those  paid  on  an  Irish  road,  Is.  6d. 

Belgium.  Yet  tlie  average  price  of  merchant  bar-iron  was  £6  10*.  in 
England,  £7  in  Belgium,  £8  in  France.— Mr.  D.  A.  Wells'  reports,  oa 
Special  Commissioner  U.  S.  Revenue. 

1  Brassey's  Life  and  Labors,  p.  160.  *  Ibid.,  Preface,  xvi. 

8  Work  and  Wages,  p.  87. 


46  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

to  "Ls.  Sd.s  Mr.  Brassey  remarks,  "  Yet  with  this  immense 
difference  in  the  rate  of  wages,  sub-contracts  on  the  Irish 
railway  were  let  at  the  same  prices  which  had  been  pre- 
viously paid  in  South  Staffordshire."1 

"  In  India,  although  the  cost  of  daily  labor  ranges  from  4|- 
to  6d.  a  day,  mile  for  mile  the  cost  of  railway  work  is 
about  the  same  as  in  England."  "  In  Italy,  masonry  and 
other  work  requiring  skilled  labor  is  rather  dearer  than 
in  England."2 

"  Great  pains  were  taken  to  ascertain  the  relative  indus- 
trial capacity  of  the  Englishman8  and  the  Frenchman  on 
the  Paris  and  Rouen  line ;  and  on  comparison  of  half  a 
dozen  <  pays,'  it  was  found  that  the  capacity  of  the  English- 
man was  to  that  of  the  Frenchman  as  five  to  three."4 
"  Mining  is  perhaps  the  most  exhausting  and  laborious  of 
all  occupations.  It  has  been  found  that  in  this  description 
of  work  the  English  miner  surpasses  the  foreigner  all  over 
the  world.  On  the  Continent,  long  after  earth-work  and 
all  the  other  operations  involved  in  the  construction  of 
railways  had  been  committed  to  the  native  workmen,  Eng- 
lish miners  were  still  employed  in  the  tunnels." 

"  In  the  quarry  at  Bonnieres,  in  which  Frenchmen, 
Irishmen,  and  Englishmen  were  employed  side  by  side, 
the  Frenchman  received  three,  the  Irishman  four,  and 
the  Englishman  six  francs  a  day.  At  those  different 
rates,  the  Englishman  was  found  to  be  the  most  advanta- 
geous workman  of  the  three."5 

Such  differences  in  industrial  efficiency  as  have  been  in- 
dicated may  exist  not  only  between  nations,  but  between 
geographical  sections  of  the  same  people.  The  very  mi- 


1  Work  and  Wages,  p.  69.  z  Ibid.,  p.  90. 

8  Four  thousand  Englishmen  were  sent  over  to  work  on  this  road. 
—Ibid.,  p.  79. 

Two  thousand  English  and  Scotch  were  sent  to  Australia  to  work  on 
the  Queensland  line. 

4  Ibid.,  p.  115.  *  Ibid.,  p.  82. 


NOMINAL  AND  REAL   COST  OF  LABOR.  47 

nute  and  careful  researches  of  M.  Dupin  in  the  early  part  of 
this  century  seemed  to  establish  a  decided  superiority  in 
productive  power  of  the  artisans  of  northern  over  those 
of  southern  France.  In  England  the  superiority  of  the 
agricultural  population  of  the  northern  counties  is  unmis- 
takably very  great.  "  Any  one,"  says  Mr.  Mundella,  M.P., 
"  who  has  witnessed  agricultural  operations  in  the  west 
of  England,  will  agree  that  the  ill-paid  and  ill-fed  laborer 
of  those  parts  is  dearer  at  9s.  or  1  Os.  per  week  than  the 
Nottinghamshire  man  at  16s."  *  "  It  would  be  a  great 
mistake,"  says  Mr.  Walter  Bagehot,  in  the  Economist?  "  to 
put  down  as  equal  the  day's  hire  of  a  Dorsetshire  laborer 
and  that  of  a  Lincolnshire  laborer.  It  would  be  like  having 
a  general  price  for  steam-engines  not  specifying  the  horse- 
power. The  Lincolnshire  man  is  far  the  more  efficient 
man  of  the  two." 

From  a  single  page  of  the  Report  for  1869  of  the 
Commission  on  the  Employment  of  Children,  Women  and 
Young  Persons  in  Agriculture,  I  extract  the  following 
testimony  respecting  the  inefficiency  of  the  laborers  of 
Berkshire :  "  I  would  rather  pay  a  Northumbrian  hind 
16  shillings  a  week  than  a  Berks  carter  12  shillings," 
testifies  one  farm  bailiff.  "  Our  men  here,"  says  an- 
other, "  are  very  inferior  to  Scotch  laborers  ;3  two  men 
there  do  as  much  as  three  here."  Another  bailiff  testifies 
that  "  he  was  obliged  to  employ  as  many  men  in  Berkshire, 
at  certain  kinds  of  work,  as  he  had  been  accustomed  to 
employ  of  women  in  Perthshire."4 


1  Social  Sc.  Trans.,  1868,  p.  524.  *  January  24th,  1874. 

3  "  I  protest,"  so  writes  a  farmer,  "  that  one  of  the  Scotchmen  whom 
I  formerly  employed  would  do  as  much  work  as  two  or  even  three 
Suffolk  laborers.     It '  makes  one's  flesh  creep '  to  see  some  of  the  lat- 
ter at  work."— Clifford,  Agricultural  Lock-out  of  1874,  p.  25,  note. 

4  Second  Report,  p.  105.     "  I  have  myself  in  Northumberland  heard 
a  Northumbrian  farmer  declare  that  one  of  the  strong  big-boned  wo- 
men who  worked  in  his  fields  was  worth  much  more  than  any  average 
southern  laborer."— Clifford,  Agric.  Lock-out  of  1874,  p.  25. 


48  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

In  view  of  such  wide  differences  in  the  productive  power 
of  individuals,  communities,  and  peoples,  no  attempt  at  a 
philosophy  of  wages  can  omit  to  inquire  into  the  causes 
of  the  varying  efficiency  of  labor.  These  causes  I  shall 
emunerate  under  six  heads ;  but  the  possible  effect  of  no 
one  cause  will  be  fully  apprehended  unless  it  be  held 
constantly  in  mind  that  the  value  of  the  laborer's  services  to 
the  employer  is  the  net  result  of  two  elements,  one  positive, 
one  negative,  namely,  work  and  waste  •  that  in  some  degree 
waste,  using  the  term  in  its  broadest  sense  to  express  the 
breakage  and  the  undue  wear  and  tear  of  implements  and 
machinery,  the  destruction  or  impairment  of  materials,1 
the  cost  of  supervision  and  oversight  to  keep  men  from 
idling  or  blundering,  and,  finally,  the  hinderance  of  many 
by  the  fault  or  failure  of  one,2  is  inseparable  from  work  ; 
and  that,  with  the  highly  finished  products  of  our  modern 
industry,  with  its  complicated  and  often  delicate  machine- 
ry, and  its  costly  materials,  themselves  perhaps  the  result 
of  many  antecedent  processes,  it  is  frequently  a  question  of 


1  On  this  point  of  waste  I  select  two  illustrations.     The    first  is 
taken  from  an  address  of  George  J.  Holyoake,  the  historian  of  Co-opera- 
tion: 

"  It  has  been  calculated  that  the  working  colliers  at  Whitwood  and 
Methley  could,  by  simply  taking  the  trouble  to  get  the  coal  in  large 
lumps,  and  by  reducing  the  proportions  of  slack,  add  to  the  colliery 
profits  £1500  a  year.  If  they  would  further  take  a  little  extra  care  below 
ground  in  keeping  the  best  coal  separate  from  the  inferior,  they  could 
add  another  £1500  to  the  profits."  (Soc.  Sc.  Transactions,  1865,  p. 
482.)  All  this  without  diminishing  their  own  earnings. 

The  second  is  the  result  of  an  experiment,  noticed  in  the  Statistical 
Journal  (xxviii.,  pp.  32,  33),  for  the  economy  of  coal  in  an  engine-fur- 
nace, through  giving  the  stokers  a  share  in  the  money  value  of  what- 
ever saving  might  be  effected.  The  result  was  to  reduce  the  consump- 
tion of  fuel,  without  loss  of  power,  from  30  to  17. 

2  H.  B.  M.  Consul  Egerton,  in  his  admirable  report  of  1873  (Textile 
Factories),  notes  the  great  irregularity  of  attendance  at  work  in  Rus- 
sia.    "  It  is  therefore  essential  to  have  a  large  staff  of  supernumerariea 
who  have  learnt  their  work,  so  as  to  be  ready  to  supply  the  vacant 
places."— P.  112. 


CAUSES  OF  VAHYINQ  EFFICIENCY.  49 

more  or  less  waste  whether  work  shall  be  worth  having1 
or  not. 

The  various  causes  which  go  to  create  differences  in  in- 
dustrial efficiency  may  be  grouped  under  six  heads,  as  fol- 
lows : 

I.  Peculiarities  of  stock  and  breeding. 

II.  The  meagreness  or  liberality  of  diet. 

III.  Habits,  voluntary  or  involuntary,  respecting  clean- 
liness of  the  person,  and  purity  of  air  and  water. 

IY.     The  general  intelligence  of  the  laborer. . 

Y.     Technical  education  and  industrial  environment. 

YI.  Cheerfulness  and  hopefulness  in  labor,  growing 
out  of  self-respect  and  social  ambition,  and  the  laborer's 
interest  in  the  results  of  his  work. 

The  first  reason  which  we  are  called  to  recognize  for 
the  great  differences  in  industrial  efficiency  which  exist 
among  men  is  found  in  peculiarities  of  stock  and  breeding. 
Of  the  causes  which  have  produced  such  widely  diverse 
types  of  manhood  as  the  Esquimaux,  the  Hottentot,  and 
the  Bengalee  at  the  one  extreme,  and  the  Frenchman,  the 
Englishman,  and  the  American  of  to-day  at  the  other,8  it 
is  not  necessary  to  speak  here  at  all.  The  effects  of  local 
climate  and  national  food,  continued  through  generations, 
upon  the  physical  structure,  have  become  so  familiar  to  the 
public  through  the  writings  of  geographers  and  ethnologists 
that  they  may  fairly  be  assumed  for  our  present  purpose. 
The  scope  and  power  of  these  causes  are  far  more  likely  to 

1 "  It  may  appear  incredible,"  remarks  Mr.  Carleton  Tuffnell,  the 
Poor-Law  Commissioner,  "  that  a  great  demand  for  labor  may  exist 
simultaneously  with  a  multitude  of  people  seeking  employment  and 
unable  to  find  it.  The  real  demand  is  not  simply  for  labor,  but  trained 
labor,  efficient  labor,  intelligent  labor." 

3  M.  Batbie  states  the  results  of  certain  experiments  with  the  dyna- 
mometer by  which  it  appears  that  while  the  figure  50  represents  the 
sheer  lifting-weight  of  a  native  of  Van  Diemen's  Land,  71  represents 
that  of  an  Anglo-Australian  cultivator.— Nouveau  cours  de  l'£conomie 
politique,  i.  70. 


50  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

be  magnified  than  disparaged  by  the  scientific  spirit  of 
this  age.  But  we  have  also  to  recognize  large  differences 
as  existing  between  far  advanced  and  highly  civilized  peo- 
ples as  to  average  height,  strength,  manual  dexterity, 
accuracy  of  vision,  health,  and  longevity. 

Thus,  for  example,  the  mean  height  of  the  Belgian 
male  was  given  by  MM.  Quetelet  and  Yillerme,  about 
1836,  as  5  feet  By3^  inches ;  that  of  the  Frenchman,  as  5  feet 
4  inches ;  that  of  the  Englishman,  5  feet  9J  inches.  Such 
differences  in  stature  exist  as  well  between  sections  of  the 
same  country ;  thus  the  Breton  peasants  are  notably  defi- 
cient even  as  measured  by  the  low  French  standard ;  while 
the  proportion  of  "  tall  men"  (i.e.,  6  feet)  examined  for  the 
British  army  was  out  of  every  10,000  English,  104 ;  out  of 
every  10,000  Scotchmen,  194 ;  out  of  every  10,000  Irish- 
men, 91.' 

At  the  same  time,  the  largest  proportion  of  rejections 
for  unsoundness  was  among  the  Irish,  the  least  among  the 
Scotch.  MM.  Quetelet  and  Yillerme  give  the  following 
determinations  of  mean  weight  for  the  same  three  coun- 
tries : 


1  Tliis  statement  is  taken  from  Mr.  Thornton  "  On  Labor,"  p.  16,  n. 
Of  tlie  (very)  "  tall  men"  (6  feet  3  inches)  enlisted  in  the  U.  S.  army, 
1861-5,  there  were  of  each  100,000— of  English  birth,  103  ;  of  Scotch, 
178 ;  of  Irish,  84  (Statistical  Memoirs  of  the  Sanitary  Commission,  p.  159) ; 
while  of  the  "  short  men"  (under  5  feet  1  inch)  there  were  in  100,000 
—of  English,  690  ;  of  Scotch,  610  ;  and  of  Irish,  only  450,  the  proportion- 
al number  of  Germans  in  this  class  rising  to  770,  and  of  Frenchmen  to 
950.  (Ibid.,  p.  177.)  The  mean  height  of  the  native  soldiers  was  much 
reduced  by  the  enlistment  of  large  numbers  of  very  young  persons  ; 
but  if  we  take  the  soldiers  from  35  years  upwards,  we  find  the  natives 
of  the  United  States  surpassing  in  stature  those  of  every  other  nation- 
ality. Thus  the  mean  height  of  soldiers  from  New-England  was,  in 
inches,  68.300;  New-York,  New-Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania,  68.096; 
Ohio  and  Indiana,  68.980 ;  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  and  Illinois,  68.781  J 
Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  69.274,  etc. ;  while  the  mean  height  of 
soldiers  born  in  Canada  was  67.300  ;  England,  66.990 ;  Scotland,  67.647 ; 
Ireland,  67.090  ;  France,  Belgium,  and  Switzerland,  66.714;  Germany, 
66.718  ;  Scandinavia,  67.299.  (Ibid.,  pp.  104, 105.) 


DIFFERENCES  IN  NATIONAL  PHYSIQUE.          r,\ 

Lbs.  avoirdupois. 

Belgian,  male  (Brussels  and  environs) 140.49 

Frenchman  (Paris  and  environs) 136.89 

Englishman  (Cambridge) 150.98 

There  is  reason  to  suspect  that  these  are  all  pitched  a 
little  high.  Among  the  sections  of  the  American  Union 
the  difference  in  mean  weight,  as  determined  by  measure- 
ments during  the  war,  1861-5,  was  very  decided.  Thus  of 
men  weighed  in  health,  those  from  New-England  averaged 
140.05  Ibs.;  those  from  New- York,  New-Jersey,  and  Penn- 
sylvania, 141.39 ;  those  from  Ohio  and  Indiana,  145.99 ; 
those  from  Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  150.58.1 

Such  and  other  physical  differences  on  which  it  is  not 
needful  to  dwell  are  due  in  part  to  the  influences  of  local 
climate  and  national  diet,  but  in  part,  also,  to  causes  social 
and  industrial. 

Of  social  causes  ample,  in  their  aggregate  effect,  to  pro- 
duce much  of  the  difference  between  the  Englishman 
and  the  Frenchman  of  to-day,  may  be  instanced  the  war 
system,  by  which,  in  France,  the  principle  of  natural 
selection  has  been  violently  reversed,  and  the  men  of 
superior  size,  strength,  and  courage  have,  generation 
after  generation,  been  shut  up  in  barracks  or  torn 
to  pieces  on  the  battle-field,  while  the  feebler  males 
have  been  left  at  home  to  propagate  the  stock.  It 
is  beyond  question  that  not  a  little  of  the  difference 
in  industrial  efficiency  which  makes  a  French  navvy 
dear  at  3  francs,  while  an  English  navvy  is  cheap  at  5s.  6d?., 
is  due  to  the  wholesale  operation  of  this  cause  among  the 
French  people  during  the  eighty  years  since  1793,  during 
which  time  the  standard  of  the  army  has  been  reduced 
from  5  feet  4  inches  to  5  feet  !£  inch.  During  the  same 


1  Statistical  Memoirs  U.  S.  Sanitary  Commission,  p.  403.  As  WM 
remarked  respecting  mean  height,  the  average  of  the  native  soldiers  of 
the  U.  S.  army  was  brought  down  by  the  great  number  of  boys  en- 
listed. 


52  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

period  the  French  horse  was  steadily  gaining  in  size  and 
weight. 

Among  the  industrial  causes  tending  to  create  such 
differences  in  laboring  power  we  may  instance  the  em- 
ployment of  children  of  tender  age  at  hard  labor  and  under 
circumstances  of  exposure ;  and  the  employment  of  wo- 
men, first,  in  work  wholly  unsuited  to  their  sex,  as  former- 
ly in  England  in  mines,  where  they  were  even  harnessed 
with  cattle  to  loads  of  ore,  and  as  now  on  the  pit-banks 
and  coke-hearths,  and,  secondly,  at  their  ordinary  work 
with  too  short  an  interval  after  childbearing.1 

Looked  at  with  no  eye  of  charity,  but  with  a  strictly 
economical  regard,  such  acts  as  these  constitute  a  horrible 
waste  of  industrial  force,  both  in  the  present  and  in  their 
effects  on  the  laboring  power  of  the  next  generation. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Social  Science  Association  in 
1870,  Mr.  George  Smith  presented  a  lump  of  clay  weighing 
43  Ibs. ,  which  in  a  wet  state  he  had  taken,  a  few  days  before, 
off  the  head  of  a  child  9  years  of  age,  who  had  daily  to 
walk  12-J-  miles  in  a  brickyard,  half  that  distance  with  such 
a  burden.  "  The  clay,"  said  Mr.  Smith,  "  wras  taken  from 
the  child,  and  the  calculations  made  by  me,  in  the  presence 
of  both  master  and  men."2  Two  or  three  instances  taken 
at  random  from  the  report3  of  Mr.  J.  E.  White,  Assist- 


1  Speaking  alike  of  the  weaving-sheds  of  the  cotton  districts  and  of 
the  woollen  districts,  Dr.  Bridges  and  Mr.  Holmes,  in  their  report  to  the 
Local  Government  Board,  in  1873,  say :   "  The  work  is  done  in  the 
great  majority  of  cases  by  women  ;  a  considerable  portion  of  these  are 
married,  and  the  practice  of  working  until  the  last  stage  of  pregnancy, 
and  of  returning  to  work  within  a  month,  sometimes  within  a  fortnight, 
or  even  a  week,  of  childbirth,  is  as  common  in  the  West  Riding  (of 
York)  as  in  Lancashire."  (Report,  p.  33,  cf.  pp.  38,39,  55.)    An  old  fac- 
tory surgeon  says :  "  I  regard  the  mother's  return  to  the  mill  as  almost 
a  sentence  of  death  to  the  child."    It  is  also  a  fruitful  source  of  per- 
manent injury  to  the  mother  herself. 

2  TransactioDs,  p.  537. 

8  Fourth  Report  (1865)  of  the  Children's  Employment  Commission 
of  1802. 


EXCESSIVE  LABOR  IN  CHILDHOOD.  58 

ant  Commissioner,  1865,  will  perhaps  help  the  American 
reader  to  appreciate  the  scope  and  force  of  the  cause  we  are 
adducing.  A  boy,  now  11,  who  went  at  9  years  old  to 
hardening  and  tempering  crinoline  steel,  worked  there 
from  7  A.M.  till  9|-  P.M.  four  nights  a  week  "  for  many 
and  many  a  month,"  "  many  a  time  till  12  at  night,"  and 
once  or  twice  worked  from  7  in  the  morning  all  through 
the  next  night  and  day,  and  on  till  12  the  following  night. 
Another,  at  9  years  old,  sometimes  made  three  12-hour 
shifts  running,  and,  when  10,  has  made  two  days  and  two 
nights  running.  Another,  now  13,  at  a  former  place 
worked  from  6  P.M.  till  noon  next  day  for  a  week  toge- 
ther, and  sometimes  for  three  shifts  together,  e.g.,  from 
Monday  morning  till  Tuesday  night. 

Nor  is  it  only  in  mines  or  factories,  in  a  stifling  atmo- 
sphere and  amid  poisonous  exhalations,  that  children  are, 
even  yet,  in  happy  England,  exposed  to  the  influences 
which  stunt,  distort,  and  weaken  them,  and  lower  the 
average  vitality  of  the  population,  and  with  this  its  indus- 
trial efficiency.  The  driving  of  children  six,  eight,  and  ten 
years1  afield  to  work  for  12  and  14  hours,  whether  under  a 
hot  sun  or  against  chilling,  cutting  winds,  must  tend  to 
disorganize  the  cartilages  of  the  joints,  to  produce  curva- 
ture of  the  spine,  to  dwarf  the  growth,  and  to  prepare  the 
way  for  an  early  breaking  down  from  rheumatism  and 
scrofula. 

I  repeat  I  have  not  adduced  these  facts  and  incidents  for 
charity's  sake,  or  in  any  sentimental  vein,  but  wholly  for 
their  economical  significance,  and  I  propose  to  use  them 
in  strict  subordination  to  recognized  economical  principles. 

II.  A  f  urth  er  reason  for  the  greater  industrial  efficiency 
of  one  laborer  than  of  another,  and  of  one  class  or  nation  of 
laborers  than  of  another,  is  a  most  vulgar  one,  namely,  better 


1  See  the  reports  of  the  Commission  of  1862  on  the  Employment  of 
Children,  and  of  the  Commission  of  1867  on  the  Employment  of  Wo- 
men and  Children. 


54  THE  WAGES  qUESTION. 

feeding.  The  human  stomach  is  to  the  animal  frame  what 
the  furnace  is  to  the  steam-engine.  It  is  there  the  force  is 
generated  which  is  to  drive  the  machine.  The  power  with 
which  an  engine  will  work  will,  up  to  a  certain  point,  in- 
crease with  every  addition  made  to  the  fuel  in  the  furnace ; 
and,  within  the  limits  of  thorough  digestion  and  assimi- 
lation, it  is  equally  true  that  the  power  which  the  laborer 
will  carry  into  his  work  will  depend  on  the  character  and 
amount  of  his  food.  What  the  employer  will  get  out  of 
his  workman  will  depend,  therefore,  very  much  on  what 
he  first  gets  into  him.  Not  only  are  bone  and  muscle  to 
be  built  up  and  kept  up  by  food,  but  every  stroke  of  the 
arm  involves  an  expenditure  of  nervous  energy,  which  is 
to  be  supplied  only  through  the  alimentary  canal.  What 
a  man  can  do  in  24  hours  will  depend  very  much  on  what 
he  can  have  to  eat  in  those  24  hours  ;  or  perhaps  it  would 
be  more  correct  to  say,  what  he  has  had  to  eat  the  24  hours 
previous.  If  his  diet  be  liberal,  his  work  may  be  mighty. 
If  he  be  underfed,  he  must  underwork.  So  far  away  as 
the  Hundred  Years'  War,  Englishmen  were  accustomed  to 
assign  a  more  generous  diet  as  the  reason  why  their  "  beef- 
fed  knaves"  so  easily  vanquished  their  traditional  enemies, 
and  even  into  this  century  the  island  writers  were  accus- 
tomed to  speak  as  if  still  for  the  same  reason,  in  work  at 
least  if  not  in  war, 

"  Upon  one  pair  of  English  legs  did  march  three  Frenchmen."1 

Of  course  in  this,  as  in  every  other    department  of 


1  "  Each  Frenchman  consumes  on  an  average  16  oz.  of  wheaten  bread 
a  day  ;  each  Englishman,  32  oz.  ;  the  former,  If  oz.  of  meat ;  the  latter, 
6  oz."— Alison,  Europe,  1815-51,  ch.  xvii.,  sec.  126. 

"  Des  experiences  ont  demontre  que  1'ouvrier  franQais,  lorsqu'il  est 
aussi  bien  nourri  qu'un  ouvrier  anglais  rend  a  peu  pres  autant  de  tra- 
vail."— Batbie,  Nouveau  Cours  de  I'Economie  politique,  i.  71. 

I  should  be  disposed  to  believe  that  a  somewhat  greater  difference 
would  remain,  notwithstanding  equivalent  subsistence,  than  M.  Bat- 
bie's  patriotism  will  allow  him  to  confess.  The  causes  adduced  un- 
der the  previous  head  must  count  for  much. 


RELATIONS  OF  FOOD  TO   WORK.  65 

expenditure,  there  is  an  economical  maximum,  where  the 
greatest  proportional  return  is  received.  Beyond  this, 
though  an  increase  of  food  may  yield  an  increase  of  force, 
it  does  not  yield  a  proportional  increase,  just  as  in  a  furnace 
with  a  given  height  of  chimney,  the  combustion  of  a  given 
number  of  pounds  of  coal  to  the  square  foot  of  grate-sur- 
face yields  the  economical  maximum  of  power.  More  fuel 
burned  will  evaporate  more  water,  but  not  proportionally 
more,  With  the  laborer  the  economical  maximum  of 
expenditure  on  food  is  reached  far  short  of  the  point  at 
which  "  gorging  and  guzzling"  begin ;  it  shuts  off  every 
thing  that  partakes  of  luxury  or  ministers  to  delicacy  ;  yet 
till  that  maximum  be  reached  every  addition  to  food  brings 
a  proportional,  or  more  than  proportional,  addition  of 
working  strength.  To  stop  far  short  of  that  limit  and 
starve  the  laboring  man  is  as  bad  economy  as  to  rob  the 
engine  of  its  fuel.  Thus  with  a  furnace  of  a  given  height, 
having  for  its  economical  maximum  12  Ibs.  of  coal  to  the 
square  foot  of  grate-surface,  the  consumption  of  6  Ibs. 
might  yield  far  less  than  one  half  the  power,  while  3  Ibs. 
might  scarcely  serve  to  keep  the  furnace  warm  under  the 
constant  loss  by  radiation  and  the  cooling  influence  of  the 
water  in  the  boilers.  In  much  the  same  way  a  laborer 
may  be  kept  on  so  low  an  allowance  of  food  that  it  will 
all  go  to  keeping  the  man  alive,  and  nothing  be  left  to 
generate  working  power.1  From  this  low  point,  where  the 
bad  economy  of  starving  the  laborer  is  manifest  even  to 
the  most  selfish  or  stupid  overseer,  up  to  a  point  where  it 
requires  a  great  deal  of  good  sense  and  more  magnanimity 
of  character  on  the  part  of  the  employer  to  make  him  feel 
sure  of  a  return  for  added  expenditure,  there  is  a  steady 

1  Mr.  B.  R.  Torrens,  M.P.,  stated,  at  the  meeting  of  the  Social  Sci- 
ence Association  in  1867,  that  when  he  was  employed  in  sending  out 
emigrants  from  Ireland  in  1840,  he  found  that  "  a  large  portion  of  the 
Irish  people  were  living  on  a  kind  of  potato  called  '  lumpers/  which 
were  so  inferior  in  quality  that  even  pigs  could  not  fatten  on  them."- 
Transactions,  p.  670. 


56  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

progression  in  working  power  as  the  diet  becomes  more 
ample  and  nutritious. 

ISTow  this  principle,  if  I  have  correctly  stated  it,  as  to 
the  economical  relation  between  food  and  laboring  force, 
becomes  of  validity  not  only  to  explain  in  part  the  great 
differences  in  industrial  efficiency  which  we  have  seen  to 
exist  among  bodies  of  laborers,  but  also  to  show  how,  in  cases 
where  the  subsistence  of  the  laborer  is  below  the  economi- 
cal maximum,  a  rise  of  wages  may  take  place  without  a 
loss  to  profits. 

That  a  large  portion  of  the  wage-laboring  class  are 
kept  below  the  economical  limit  of  subsistence  there  can 
be  no  doubt.  "  To-day,  in  the  west  of  England,"  says 
Prof.  Fawcett,  "  it  is  impossible  for  an  agricultural  laborer 
to  eat  meat  more  than  once  a  week."1  Of  the  Devon  peas- 
ant Canon  Girdlestone  writes  :  "  The  laborer  breakfasts  on 
teakettle  broth — hot  water  poured  on  bread  and  flavored 
with  onions ; — dines  on  bread  and  hard  cheese  at  %d.  a 
pound,  with  cider  very  washy  and  sour ;  and  sups  on  pota- 
toes or  cabbage  greased  with  a  tiny  bit  of  fat  bacon.  He 
seldom  more  than  sees  or  smells  butcher's  meat."2  Little 
wonder  is  it  that  the  Devon  laborer  is  a  different  sort  of 
animal  from  the  Lincoln  or  Lothian  laborer.  No  Devon 
farmer  would  doubt  that  it  was  bad  economy  to  keep  his 
cattle  on  a  low,  unnutritious  diet.  ~No  reputable  Devon 

1  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  471.     Lord  Brabazon,  in  his  report  (p.  54)  on  the 
condition  of  the  industrial  classes  of  France,  1872,  cites  the  opinion 
of  Dr.  Cenveilhier  that  the  French  population  are,  as  a  rule,  insuffi- 
ciently nourished.     "  Many  a  French  factory  hand  never  has  any  thing 
hetter  for  his  breakfast  than  a  large  slice  of  common  sour  bread, 
rubbed  over  with  an  onion  so  as  to  give  it  a  flavor."  (Lord  Brabazon, 
p.  52.)    Mr.  Locock  writes  from  the  Netherlands  (Report  of  1870,  p. 
19) :  "  Meat  is  rarely  tasted  by  the  working  classes  in  Holland.     It 
forms  no  part  of  the  bill  of  fare  either  for  the  man  or  his  family." 
From  Belgium  Mr.  Pakenham  reports :  "  Very  many  have  for  their 
entire  subsistence  but  potatoes  with  a  little  grease,  brown  or  black 
bread,  often  bad,  and  for  their  drink  &  tincture  of  chickory."  (Re- 
ports of  1871,  p.  20.) 

2  Heath's  English  Peasantry,  p.  100. 


UNDERFED  LABOR.  57 

farmer  would  reason  that,  as  he  was  but  just  able  now  to 
make  a  living  profit,  he  would  be  ruined,  for  good  and  for 
all,  were  he  to  give  his  horses  enough  to  keep  them  in 
good  condition  for  work.  And  if  one  were  found  so  nig- 
gardly and  so  foolish  as  to  act  and  talk  thus,  his  neighbors 
at  least  would  tell  him  that  the  very  reason  why  he  made 
such  bare  profits  now  was  that  he  starved  his  stock,  and 
that  with  better  feeding  they  would  better  earn  their 
keep.1  Yet  the  farmers  of  the  west  of  England,  almost  as 
a  body,  when  they  had  to  meet  the  demands  of  their 
laborers  for  increase  of  wages  in  1873  and  in  1874,  under 
the  instigation  of  the  Agricultural  Union,  declared  that  they 
would  be  ruined  if  they  paid  higher  wages ;  and  there  are 
not  wanting  economists  of  reputation  to  corroborate  them, 
and  assert  that  it  is  "  physically  impossible  "2  that  wages 
should  be  advanced  without  impairing  profits.  If  there 
is  any  physical  impossibility  in  the  case,  it  is  that  the 
wretched  peasants  could  be  better  fed  without  adding  to 
the  value  of  their  labor  to  their  employers. 

The  revelations  of  the  Poor-Law  Commission  of  1833 
respecting  the  comparative  subsistence  of  the  soldier,  the 
agricultural  laborer,  and  the  pauper  were  veiy  striking. 
The  soldier,  who  had  active  duties  and  needed  to  be  kept 
in  at  least  tolerable  physical  condition,  received  a  ration  of 
"S68  oz.,  the  able-bodied  pauper  received  151  oz.,  while  the 
independent  laborer,  sole  surviving  representative  of  the 
yeomanry  of  Crecy  and  Agincourt,  received  122  oz.  per 
week.  Now  it  goes  without  saying  that  when  the  day 
laborer,  toiling  from  morning  till  night  hi  the  fields,  re- 
ceives a  smaller  amount  of  nourishment  than  the  sense  of 
public  decency  will  allow  to  be  given  to  paupers,  that 

1  Sir  Joseph  Whitworth  is  reported  to  have  said  that  he  could  not 
afford  to  work  a  horse  in  his  establishment  which  ate  less  than  18  Ibu. 
of  oats  a  day. 

a "  It  is  physically  impossible  that  any  permanent  rise  in  wages  should 
take  place  without  corresponding  diminution  of  profits." — H.  Fawcett, 
Pol.  Econ.,p.  264. 


58  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

laborer  is  underfed,  in  the  sense  that  he  must  and  will  un- 
derwork. 

To  avoid  multiplying  titles,  I  will  in  this  connection 
mention  clothing  as  in  most  climates  a  condition  of  effi- 
ciency in  production.  A  portion,  in  some  countries  a 
large  portion,  of  the  food  taken  into  the  stomach  goes  to 
support  the  necessary  warmth  of  the  body.  Clothing  goes 
to  the  same  object.  Within  certain  limits,  it  is  a  matter  of 
indifference  whether  you  keep  up  the  temperature  of  the 
body  by  putting  food  into  a  man  or  clothing  on  to  him. 
As  Mr,  Peshine  Smith  has  said,  "  A  sheet-iron  jacket  put 
around  the  boiler  prevents  the  waste  of  heat  in  the  one 
case,  just  as  a  woollen  jacket  about  the  body  of  the  laborer 
does  in  the  other."1  Here,  again,  there  is  an  econo- 
mical maximum  beyond  which  expenditure  will  not  be 
justified  by  the  return ;  but  here,  again,  it  can  not  be 
doubted  that  large  classes  of  laborers  suffer  a  great  loss  of 
industrial  efficiency  from  the  want  of  adequate  clothing. 
Prof.  Fawcett  quotes3  the  poor-law  inspectors  as  stating 
that  one  fifth  in  number  of  the  population  are  insufficient- 
ly clothed.  Insufficiency  of  clothing  means,  of  course,  fee- 
bleness of  working  and  excessive  sickness  and  mortality. 

But  I  may  be  here  called  to  meet  an  objection  to  my 
statements  under  this  head,  based  on  the  assumed  sufficien- 
cy of  the  sense  of  self-interest  in  employers.  How,  it  may 
be  asked,  do  you  account  for  the  failure  of  employers  to 
pay  wages  which  will  allow  their  laborers  a  more  liberal 
sustenance,  if  indeed  it  is  for  their  own  advantage  to  do 
so? 

In  the  first  place,  I  challenge  the  assumption  which  un- 
derlies the  orthodox  doctrine  of  wages,  namely,  the  suf- 
ficiency of  the  sense  of  self-interest.  Mankind,  always 


1  Pol.  Econ.,p.  107. 

8  Economical  Position  of  the  Br.  Laborer,  p.  231,  note. 


UNDERFED  LABOR.  59 

less  than  wise,  and  too  often  foolish  to  the  point  of  stupidi- 
ty, on  the  one  side,  and  of  fanaticism,  on  the  other,  wheth- 
er in  government,  in  domestic  life,  in  the  care  of  their 
bodies,  or  in  the  care  of  their  souls,  do  not  suddenly  be- 
come wise  in  industrial  concerns.  The  argument  for  keep- 
ing a  laborer  well  that  he  may  work  well  applies  with 
equal  force  to  the  maintenance  of  a  slave.  Yet  we  know, 
by  a  mass  of  revolting  testimony,  that  in  all  countries 
avarice,  the  consuming  lust  of  immediate  gain,  a  passion 
which  stands  in  the  way  of  a  true  and  enlarged  view  of 
self-interest  and  works  unceasing  despite  to  self-interest, 
has  always1  despoiled  the  slave  of  a  part  of  the  food  and 
clothing  necessary  to  his  highest  efficiency  as  a  laborer. 
The  same  argument  would  apply  with  equal  force  to  the 
care  of  livestock.  Yet  it  is  the  hardest  thing  in  the  world 
to  bring  a  body  of  farmers  up  to  the  conviction,  and  hold 
them  there  steadily,  that  it  pays  to  feed  cattle  well  and  treat 
them  well.  England,  what  with  unending  fairs  and  pre- 
miums,' with  royal  and  noble  patronage  and  ensample,and 
with  a  very  limited  proprietorship  which  it  might  be  sup- 
posed could  be  more  easily  kept  informed  as  to  the  real 
economy  of  agriculture — England,  I  say,  has  managed  to 
create  a  public  sentiment  which  keeps  her  farmers  reasona- 
bly up  to  the  standard  in  this  matter  of  the  care  of  stock  ; 

1  Where  slaves  were  kept  and  worked  only  for  purposes  of  gain. 
Where  slavery  was  a  political  and  social  institution,  as  in  the  Middle 
States  of  the  American  Union,  something  of  grace  and  kindliness 
might  come  to  climb  up  about  it. 

a  I  have  never  chanced  to  hear  of  any  premiums  offered  in  Devon  or 
Dorset  for  the  fattest  and  sleekest,  or  the  most  manly  and  athletic 
«  team"  of  agricultural  laborers,  though  there  have  been,  all  honor  for 
it !  instances  of  prizes  given  for  "  model  cottages."  "  Comment !  Voa 
cultivateurs  consacrent  des  sommes  considerables  pour  couvrir  leura 
champs  d'engrais,  vos  industriels  ne  negligent  aucun  soin,  ne  reculent 
devant  aucune  depense  pour  assurer  et  faciliter  le  jeu  de  lours  ma- 
chines ;  et  vous,  vous  negligez  de  cultiver  votre  champ  le  plus  fertile, 
de  graisser  efr  de  soigner  votre  machine  la  plus  precieuse,  votre  ma- 
cUne  mere,  de  laquelle  toutes  les  autres  dependent,  puisqu'elles  en 
eont  sorties."— Blanqui  (aine)  Cours  d'ficonomie  Industrielle,  li.  353. 


60  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

yet  even  in  England  the  exceptions  are  not  few ;  while, 
the  world  over,  the  rule  is  niggardliness  of  expenditure 
working  deep  and  lasting  prejudice  to  production. 

I  might  thus  abundantly  shelter  myself  behind  the  anal- 
ogous cases  which  have  been  cited,  where  true  self-interest 
is  most  conspicuously  sacrificed  to  greed.1  But  another 
reason  appears  in  the  case  of  the  wage-laborer.  It  is  that 
the  employer  has  none  of  that  security  which  the  owner 
of  stock  or  the  master  of  slaves  possesses,  that  what  goes 
in  food  shall  come  back  to  him  in  work.  A  man  buying 
an  underfed  slave  or  an  underfed  ox  knows  that  when  he 
has  brought  his  property  into  good  condition,  the  advan- 
tage will  be  his  ;  but  the  free  laborer  when  he  waxes  fat 
may,  like  Jeshurun,  kick,  and  take  himself  off.  There  is 
no  law  yet  which  gives  an  employer  compensation  for 
"  unexhausted  improvements"  in  the  person  of  his  laborer. 
The  employer  therefore  takes  his  risk,  in  respect  to  all 
subsistence  which  goes  to  build  up  bone  and  sinew  in  his 
workmen,  that  the  added  laboring  power  may  be  sold  to  a 
neighbor  or  carried  away  bodily  to  Australia. 

III.  Another  reason  for  differences  in  industrial  efficien- 
cy is  found  in  differing  habits,  whether  of  choice  or  neces- 
sity in  their  origin,  respecting  cleanliness  of  the  person  and 
purity  of  air  and  water.  The  first  great  prison  reformer 
shocked  the  civilized  world  with  the  revelations  which  he 


1  Doubtless  race-characteristics  have  very  much,  to  do  with  the 
ability  to  subordinate  greed  to  real  interests,  and  to  take  a  large  view 
'of  economy.  We  should  expect  to  find  the  Teutonic  peoples  surpass- 
ing all  others  in  this  respect ;  the  Slavonic  peoples  far  to  the  rear. 
Mr.  Consul  Holmes,  in  his  Report  to  the  British  Government  on  the 
Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes  of  Bosnia  in  1871,  remarks  that  the 
Eastern  Christians,  like  the  Turks,  "  look  far  more  to  cheapness  than 
excellence  in  what  they  purchase,  and  good  workmanship  and  consci- 
entious labor  is  neither  appreciated  nor  desired  "  (p.  762).  Mr.  Consul 
Palgrave  makes  a  similar  remark  respecting  the  Anatolians  (p.  732). 
"  The  very  appreciation  of  good  work,"  writes  Sir  P.  Francis  from  Tur- 
key, "  is,  I  believe,  lost." — Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial 
Classes,  1872,  p.  372. 


UNSANITARY  ABODES.  61 

made  of  the  abodes  of  the  convict  classes.  Yet,  a  distin- 
guished sanitarian,  often  quoted  in  these  pages,  has  said  : 
"  More  filth,  worse  physical  suffering  and  moral  disorder 
than  Howard  describes  as  affecting  the  prisoners,  are  to  be 
found  among  the  cellar  population  of  the  working  people 
of  Liverpool,  Manchester,  or  Leeds,  and  in  large  portions 
of  the  metropolis."1  "  Out  of  a  population  of  85,000 
householders,"  says  Prof.  Gairdner,  speaking  of  Glasgow, 
"  30,000  or  35,000  belong  to  a  class  who  are  most  dan- 
gerous in  a  sanitary  point  of  view."3  "  Hovels,  cellars, 
mere  dark  dens,"  says  Inglis,  in  describing  the  city  homes 
of  Ireland  in  183-1,  "  damp,  filthy,  stagnant,  unwholesome 
places,  into  which  we  should  not  in  England  put  any  do- 
mestic animal."3  But  even  in  England  and  to-day  Canon 
Girdlestone  says  of  the  homes  of  the  peasants  of  Devon  : 
"  The  cottages  as  a  rule,  are  not  fit  to  house  pigs  in."* 
Of  309  cottages  at  Ramsbottom,  near  Bury, "  one  of  the  best 
districts  in  Lancashire,"  remarks  Col.  Sykes,5 137  had  but 
one  bedroom  each,  the  aggregate  occupants  being  777  ;  172 
had  two  bedrooms  each,  the  aggregate  occupants  being 
1223.  Some  of  the  families  occupying  a  single  bedroom 
consisted  of  from  8  to  13  individuals.  At  Bristol,  out  of 
6000  families  reported  on,  556  occupied  part  of  a  room 
only  ;  2244  one  room  only  ;  the  average  number  of  persons 
to  a  family  being  3.46.  "  One  third  of  the  population  of 
Scotland  in  1861,"  says  Mr.  Caird,  "  lived  in  houses  of  one 
room  only  ;  another  third  in  houses  of  two  rooms  only."' 
The  subject  is  not  a  pleasant  one  to  pursue,  but  as  none 
holds  more  important  relations  to  the  philosophy  of  wages 
than  the  one  now  under  consideration,  I  must  ask  my 
readers  to  endure  the  following  descriptions  of  human 
habitations  taken  from  the  Poor-Law  Keport  of  1842. 

1  Edwin  Chadwick.    Poor-Law  Report,  1842,  p.  212. 

2  Soc.  So.  Transactions,  1866,  p.  737. 

3  Journey  Throughout  Ireland,  p.  379. 

4  Heath's  English  Peasantry,  p.  100. 

•  Statistical  Journal,  xiii.  47.  '  But.  Journal,  «*m  ,5. 


62  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

"  Shepherd's  Buildings  consist  of  two  rows  of  houses 
with  a  street  seven  yards  wide  between  them ;  each  row 
consists  of  what  are  styled  back  and  front  houses  ;  that  is, 
two  houses  placed  back  to  back.  There  are  no  yards  or 
out-conveniences ;  the  privies  are  in  the  centre  of  each 
row,  about  a  yard  wide ;  over  them  there  is  part  of  a  sleep- 
ing-room ;  there  is  no  ventilation  in  the  bedrooms.  Each 
house  contains  two  rooms,  namely,  a  house-place  and  sleep- 
ing-room above  ;  each  room  is  about  three  yards  wide  and 
four  long.  In  one  of  these  houses  there  are  nine  persons 
belonging  to  one  family,  and  the  mother  on  the  eve  of  her 
confinement.  The  cellars  are  let  off  as  separate  dwellings ; 
these  are  dark,  damp,  and  very  low,  not  more  than  six  feet 
between  the  ceiling  and  floor.  The  street  between  the 
two  rows  is  seven  yards  wide,  in  the  centre  of  which  is  the 
common  gutter,  or,  more  properly,  sink,  into  which  all  sorts 
of  refuse  are  thrown." — Report,  pp.  17,  18. 

This  is  a  description  of  the  cottages  of  a  manufacturing 
village.  The  same  report  gives  an  account  of  the  homes 
of  the  peasantry  of  Durham,  "  built  of  rubble  or  unhewn 
stone,  loosely  cemented."  "  The  chimneys  have  lost  half 
their  original  height,  and  lean  on  the  roof  with  fearful 
gravitation.  The  rafters  are  evidently  rotten  and  displaced, 
and  the  thatch,  yawning  to  admit  the  wind  and  wet  in 
some  parts,  and  in  all  parts  utterly  unfit  for  its  original 
purpose  of  giving  protection  from  the  weather,  looks  more 
like  the  top  of  a  dunghill  than  a  cottage.  Such  is  the  ex- 
terior ;  and  when  the  hind  comes  to  take  possession,  he 
finds  it  no  better  than  a  shed.  The  wet,  if  it  happens  to 

rain,  is  making  a  puddle  on  the  earth  floor They 

have  no  byre  for  their  cows,  nor  sties  for  their  pigs ;  no 
pumps  or  wells ;  nothing  to  promote  cleanliness  or  comfort. 
The  average  size  of  these  sheds  is  about  24  by  16.  They 
are  dark  and  unwholesome ;  the  windows  do  not  open, 
and  many  of  them  are  not  larger  than  20  inches  by  16  ; 
and  into  this  place  are  crowded  8,  10,  or  even  12  persons." 
—Report,  pp.  22,  23. 


UNSANITARY  ABODES. 


The  climax  of  possible  horror  would  seem  to  be  readied 
in  the  description  of  the  wynds  of  Edinburgh  ;  but  I  will 
not  offend  the  reader's  sensibilities  by  quoting  from  it.  It 
will  perhaps  be  quite  as  effective  to  compare  the  experi- 
ence of  sickness  in  these  dens  of  abomination  with  that 
of  other  localities.  The  following  table  shows  the  average 
number  of  days'  sickness  suffered  in  a  year  by  a  family  in 
the  wynds  in  comparison  (1)  with  the  experience  of  the 
Benefit  Societies  in  Scotland,  and  (2)  with  the  experience 
of  places  under  sanitary  measures. 


AGE. 

Benefit  Societies. 

Under  Sanitary 
Measures. 

The  Wynds. 

Man  40  

6.9 

2  75 

15  1 

Woman  30  

4.2 

2.10 

11  0 

Child,  15  

0.2 

0.17 

3  5 

11.3 

5.02 

29.6 

So  much  for  the  places  where  men  live  during  the  half 
of  the  day  devoted  to  sleep  and  refreshment.  In  the 
places  where  they  labor  there  is  not  such  a  dreary  monotony 
of  squalor  and  misery.  Neither  indifference  nor  malignity 
even,  on  the  part  of  employers  could  succeed  in  placing  the 
great  majority  of  workingmen  so  wretchedly.  The  first 
occupation  of  man  still  employs  by  far  the  greater  part  of 
the  race,  and  for  them  sunlight  and  air  are  provided  by  the 
indefeasible  bounty  of  nature.  If  the  Durham  and  Devon 
hind  does  not  "  sleep  all  night  in  Elysium,"  he  at  least 
"  sweats  all  day  in  the  eye  of  Phoebus/'  Nor  is  it  only 
the  agriculturist  who  pursues  his  occupation  in  the  open 
air.  In  no  small  proportion  of  the  mechanical  trades  either 
the  conditions  of  the  work  do  not  allow  the  laborer  to  be 
shut  in  between  walls,  or  the  expense  of  enclosure  out- 
weighs its  advantages,  and  the  trade,  though  it  might  be 
even  better  prosecuted  under  cover,  is,  in  fact,  carried  on 
out-doors.  After  all  deductions,  however,  there  remain  a 
melancholy  multitude  who  are  called  to  breathe  the  foul 


64  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

air  of  mines ;  to  labor  in  the  stifling  atmosphere  of 
mills  and  factories,  "  hazy"  or  "  cloudy"  with,  particles 
irritating  to  the  lungs  or  poisonous  to  the  blood,  and  to 
pant  through  the  hours  of  work  in  "  sweating  dens"  like 
those  which  the  indignant  eloquence  of  Kingsley1  has  made 
so  painfully  familiar  to  his  English  and  American  readers, 
though  all  verbal  description  must  fall  short  of  the  shock- 
ing reality.3 

I  have  not  dwelt  thus  at  length  upon  descriptions  of 
human  habitations  unfit  for  cattle  or  for  swine,  for  the 
purpose  of  harrowing  the  feelings  of  my  readers,  or  even 
with  a  view  to  excite  compassion  for  the  condition  of  the 
working  classes.  My  single  object  has  been  to  afford  illus- 
tration of  the  influence  of  the  cause  we  are  now  consider- 
ing, upon  the  efficiency  of  labor.  A  great  part,  if  not  the 
great  majority,  of  the  laborers  of  the  world  are  to-day 
housed  thus  miserably  ;  uncounted  millions  worse.  Even 
of  those  whose  lot  is  more  fortunate  but  a  very  small  pro- 
portion, in  any  of  the  older  countries,  have  in  their  lodging 
the  light  and  air  which  the  least  exacting  hygiene  declares 
to  be  essential  to  the  harmonious  development  and  adequate 
sustentation  of  the  bodily  powers. 

It  is  in  abodes  such  as  have  been  described  that  children 
grow  to  maturity  and  get  the  size  and  strength  which  are 
to  determine  their  quality  as  workers.  It  is  in  abodes  like 
these  that  laboring  men  have  to  seek  repose  and  refresh- 
ment after  the  complete  exhaustion  of  a  hard  day's  work  ; 
that  they  breathe  the  air  which  istooxydize  their  blood,  and 
eat  and  undertake  to  digest  the  food  on  which  to-morrow's 
work  is  to  be  done.  What  wonder  that  children  grow 
up  stunted  and  weazen  and  deformed ;  that  the  blood  of 
manhood  becomes  foul  and  lethargic,  the  nerves  unstrung, 
the  sight,  on  which  depends  much  of  the  use  of  all  the 


1  In  his  Alton  Locke. 

*  See  Report  Poor-Law  Commission,  1843,  pp.  98-104. 


IMPURITY  OF  WATER.  65 

other  powers,  weakened  or  distorted,  and  the  whole  tone 
of  life1  and  of  labor  depressed  and  intermittent  ? 

I  have  spoken  of  the  dwellings  too  often  inhabited  by 
the  laboring  classes,  and  of  the  air  which  they  have  to 
breathe.  As  to  the  water  they  have  to  drink,  it  will 
suffice  here  to  cite  the  results  of  an  inspection  and  chemi- 
cal analysis  of  140  specimens  of  drinking-water  made  in  a 
large  number  of  the  cities  and  towns  of  Scotland  by  Dr. 
Stevenson  Macadam  :a 

Number    grossly  contaminated  by   sewage    matter 

and  decidedly  unwholesome 104 

Number  less  contaminated  and  less  unwholesome. . ..  32 

Number  tinged  with  sewage  matter 4 

Number  free  from  all  contamination. .  0 


Total  examined 140 

IY.  The  general  intelligence  of  the  laborer  is  a  factor 
of  his  industrial  efficiency.  This  proposition  is  too  well 
established  and  too  familiar  to  need  extended  illustration. 
The  intelligent  laborer  is  more  useful  not  merely  because 
he  knows  how  to  apply8  his  bodily  force  in  his  work  with 
the  greatest  effect,  but  also  because 

(a)  He  requires  a  shorter  apprenticeship  and  less  techni- 

1  How,  indeed,  do  human  beings  live  at  all  under  such  circum- 
stances ?  Fresh  and  vigorous  constitutions  would  go  off  at  a  gallop  in 
some  form  of  active  disease,  under  such  ever-present  infection.  The 
only  reason  why  the  very  miserable  live  under  it  is  because  they  have 
taken  on  a  lower  type  of  being,  which  is  compatible  with  existence  in 
such  surroundings  but  altogether  incompatible  with  great  exertions. 
"  Their  freedom  from  specific  evil  is  only  evidence  that  they  have  sub- 
sided into  a  coarser  and  lower  nature.  The  florid,  strong-pulsed  man, 
fresh  from  a  wholesome  country  dwelling,  would  die  right  off  when 
subjected  to  the  deficient  sanitary  conditions  which  are  innocuous  to  the 
lower  physical  development  of  the  very  poor  vegetating  in  the  pur- 
lieus of  large  towns  or  in  mud-built  country  cottages."— Charles  Lam- 
port, Soc.  Sc.  Transactions,  1870,  p.  532. 

a  Soc.  Sc.  Transactions,  1867,  p.  561. 

3  "  Le  travail  suppose  1.  1'intelligence  qui  conceit  et  2.  le  main  qui 
execute."— Batbie. 


6G  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

cal  instruction.     "  A  recruit."  says  Prof.  Rogers.  "  who 

•/  O  ' 

knows  how  to  read  and  write  can  learn  his  drill  in  half  the 
time  in  which  a  totally  ignorant  person  can."1 

(5)  He  requires  far  less  superintendence.  Superintend- 
ence is  a]  ways  costly.  If  an  overseer  is  required  for  every 
ten  men  engaged  on  a  piece  of  work,  the  product  must  pay 
for  the  time  and  labor,  not  of  ten  men  but  of  eleven  ;  and 
if  the  overseer  obtains,  as  he  most  likely  will,  twice  the 
wages  of  a  common  laborer,  then  the  product  must  pay  for 
the  time  and  labor  of  twelve.  The  employer  would  just 
as  soon  pay  his  hands  20  per  cent  more  if  he  could  dispense 
with  the  overseer. 

(0)  He  is  far  less  wasteful  of  material.  Even  in  agri- 
culture no  product  can  be  obtained  from  labor  without  the 
sacrifice  of  pre-existing  wealth.  A  bushel  of  wheat  must 
be  sown  for  every  six  or  eight  bushels  to  be  reaped,  and 
with  it  must  be  buried  large  quantities  of  .costly  manures. 
But  in  mechanical  industry  it  often  happens  that  the  value 
of  the  materials  used  in  a  manufacture,  being  themselves 
the  result  of  antecedent  processes,  far  exceeds  the  value 
proposed  to  be  added  by  labor.  Thus,  in  the  United  States 
in  1870,  we  find  a  group  of  industries  employing  101,504 
hands,  where  the  value  of  the  materials  was  $707,361,378, 
while  only  $31,734,815  were  paid  in  wages.2  Now,  waste  is 
inevitable  in  all  handling  of  material.  It  is  merely  a  ques- 
tion of  more  or  less  ;  and  in  this  respect  the  range  between 
ignorant  and  intelligent  labor  is  very  great.  By  waste  is 
not  meant  alone  the  total  destruction  of  material,  but  its 
impairment  in  any  degree  so  that  the  finished  product 
takes  a  lower  commercial  value.  So  great  are  the  possi- 
bilities of  loss  from  this  source  that  in  all  the  higher  branches 
of  production  unintelligent  labor  is  not  regarded  as  worth 
having  at  any  price  however  low. 

(d)  He    can    use    delicate    and    intricate    machinery. 

1  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  117. 

8  Ninth  Census  of  the  United  States,  1870.     Industry  and  Wealth, 
p.  380. 


INTELLIGENCE  IN  LABOR.  67 

The  cost  of  repairing  and  replacing  this  with  ignorant 
labor  very  soon  eats  up  the  profits  of  production,  and  not 
unfrequently  the  effect  is  to  practically  prohibit  the  use  of 
all  but  the  coarsest  tools.  "  Experienced  mechanicians 
assert  that,  notwithstanding  the  progress  of  machinery  in 
agriculture,  there  is  probably  as  much  sound  practical 
labor-saving  invention  and  machinery  unused  as  there  is 
used ;  and  that  it  is  unused  solely  in  consequence  of  the 
ignorance  and  incompetency  of  the  workpeople."1 

We  have  some  striking  testimony  on  this  point  from  Asia 
and  Eastern  Europe.  Wheeler,  in  his  "  Cotton  Cultivation," 
states  that  the  women  of  India  were  accustomed  to  earn 
with  the  native  "  churka"  from  three  farthings  to  a  little 
over  a  penny  a  day,  while  with  the  Manchester  cotton-gin 
they  could  have  earned  with  ease  three  pence  and  possibly 
four  and  a  half  pence.2  And  H.  B.  M.  Consul  Stuart  re- 
ports concerning  the  laborers  of  Epirus :  "  In  dealing  with 
weights  and  resistance  they  use  direct  physical  force  ;  the 
aids  of  the  pulley  or  windlass  are  but  seldom  called  in, 
while  handbarrows  and  wheelbarrows  are  seen  only  on 
rare  occasions.  It  is  a  singular  fact  that  during  the  fifty 
years  of  British  occupation  in  the  Ionian  Islands,  not  a 
single  mechanical  improvement  crossed  from  Corfu  to 
Epirus,  if  I  may  except  the  screw  and  the  buckle,  which 
found  their  way  here  some  few  years  ago,  and  are  now  in 
limited  use."3 

Y.  Still  another  reason  for  the  large  differences  which 
exist  in  respect  to  industrial  efficiency  is  found  in  technical 
education  and  industrial  environment.  Perhaps  no  one  of 
the  causes  already  mentioned  contributes  more  to  this  re- 
sult. Even  more,  I  am  disposed  to  believe,  than  stock  and 
breeding,  even  more  than  national  diet,  do  the  inherited 
instincts  of  a  people  in  respect  to  labor,  and  their  habits  and 
methods  of  work,  consciously  or  unconsciously  acquired, 

1  Ream's  Plutology,  p.  59.  '  p-  173- 

8  Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes,  18  <1,  p.  775. 


68  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

the  esprit  and  the  dominating  ideas  of  the  national  industry, 
determine  the  degree  of  efficiency  which  will  be  reached 
in  the  production  of  any  country.  Handiness,  aptness,  and 
fertility  of  resource  become  congenital ;  in  some  commu- 
nities the  child  is  brought  into  the  world  half  an  artisan. 
Then,  too,  he  becomes  a  better  workman  simply  by  reason 
of  being  accustomed,  through  the  years  of  his  own  inability 
to  labor,  to  see  tools  used  with  address,  and  through 
watching  the  alert  movement,  the  prompt  co-operation,1 
the  precise  manipulation,  of  bodies  of  workmen.  The 
better  part  of  industrial  as  of  every  other  kind  of  educa- 
tion is  unconsciously  obtained.  And  when  the  boy  is 
himself  apprenticed  to  a  trade,  or  sets  himself  at  work,  he 
finds  all  about  him  a  thorough  and  minute  organization  of 
labor  which  conduces  to  the  highest  production ;  he  has 
examples  on  every  side  to  imitate  ;  if  he  encounters  special 
obstacles,  he  has  only  to  stop,  or  hardly  even  to  stop,  to  see 
some  older  hand  deal  with  the  same  ;  if  he  needs  help,  it  is 
already  at  his  elbow  ;  and,  above  all,  he  comes  under  im- 
pulses and  incitements  to  exertion  and  to  the  exercise  of 
thoughtfulness  and  ingenuity,  which  are  as  powerful  and 
unremitting  as  the  impulses  and  incitements  which  a  re- 
cruit experiences  in  a  crack  regiment  from  the  moment  he 
dons  the  uniform. 

Very  striking  testimony  is  borne  in  many  official  reports 
to  the  differences  in  the  industrial  spirit  of  the  different 
nations.  Mr.  Edwin  Rose  testified  before  the  Factory 
Commission  to  the  great  superiority  of  the  English  laborer 
over  his  Continental  rival  in  his  habits  of  close  and  continu- 
ous application ;  and  at  a  subsequent  inquiry  Mr.  Thomp- 
son, of  Clitheroe,  spoke  from  a  vast  personal  observation 


1  In  a  debate  in  the  House  of  Lords  in  1875,  Earl  Fortescue  stated 
that  Sir  Joseph  Whitworth,  the  eminent  manufacturer  of  arms,  had  ex- 
pressed the  opinion  that  "  a  workman  who  had  acquired  the  habit  of 
moving  promptly  at  the  word  of  command  was  worth  on  the  average 
Is.  6d.  a  week  more  than  a  man  of  equal  manual  dexterity  who  had 
not  acquired  the  habit." — The  Times. 


INDUSTRIAL  ENVIRONMENT.  r;o 

of  the  "enduring,  untiring,  savage  industry"  of  the  Eng- 
lish workman.  "  The  labor  of  Alsace,"  he  says,  "  the 
best  and  cheapest  in  France,  is  dearer  than  the  labor  of 
Lancashire."  That  was  forty  years  ago.  To-day  the 
esprit  and  the  technique  of  industry  on  the  Continent  are 
perhaps  advanced  somewhat  beyond  where  England  was  in 
1835  ;  but  the  English  are  looking  back  with  not  a  little 
wonder  at  their  own  want  of  force  and  drive  industrially, 
in  the  time  of  which  Mr.  Thompson  speaks.  Thus  we  find 
Dr.  Bridges  and  Mr.  Holmes,  in  their  report  to  the  Local 
Government  Board  of  1873,  writing  of  the  Scotch  flax 
district  as  follows : 

"  We  were  struck  by  the  easy  and  almost  leisurely  way 
in  which  labor  was  carried  on  in  the  spinning-rooms  as 
compared  with  the  unremitting  application  of  the  Lanca- 
shire operatives.  All  the  spinners  had  seats  provided  for 
them,  of  which  a  large  number  availed  themselves.  The 
number  of  spindles  assigned  to  each  was  small,  varying  from 
50  to  80  j1  and  the  number  of  ends  breaking  was  in  no 
case  such  as  to  necessitate  constant  movement.  Some  of 
the  women  were  knitting,  and  all  appeared  much  at  their 
ease.  In  fact,  the  work  very  much  resembled  the  picture 
frequently  drawn  to  us,  whether  truly  or  otherwise,  of 
Lancashire  weaving  and  spinning  as  it  was  20  or  30  years 
ago.™ 

~Now  it  is  needless  to  say  that  some  of  this  heightened 

1  The  proportion  of  looms  to  weavers  in  England  as  contrasted  with 
the  proportion  which  obtains  in  Ireland  and  Scotland  is  significant  in 
the  same  regard. 

Looms  in  Cotton  Mfr.  Weavers. 

England,         .         .         165,032        .        .        .          57,555 
Scotland,        .         .          22,621        .        .        .  12,114 

Ireland,  .         .  3,372 

191,025  71,533 

Nearly  three  looms  to  1  weaver  in  England ;  not  quite  2  looms  in 
Scotland  and  Ireland.  (Report,  p.  16.) 
3  Report,  p.  27. 


70  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

activity  is  of  bad  and  not  of  good.  Undoubtedly  it  involves 
in  some  degree  overwork  and  the  undue  wear  and  tear  of 
the  muscular  and  the  nervous  system.  But  by  no  means 
all,  or  probably  the  greater  part,  comes  to  this.  It  is  because 
manual  dexterity  and  visual  accuracy  have  been  developed 
to  a  high  point  in  one  generation  and  bred  into  the  next 
generation ;  because  habits  of  subordination  and  co-operation 
have  become  instinctive  ;  because  organization  and  discipline 
have  been  brought  nearly  to  perfection,  that  mechanical 
labor  in  England  is  so  much  more  effective  than  on  the  Conti- 
nent. E"or  is  keen,  persistent  activity  necessarily  injurious. 
Dawdling  and  loafing  over  one's  work  are  not  beneficial  to 
health.  Man  was  made  for  labor,  for  energetic,  enthusi- 
astic labor,  and  within  certain  limits,  not  narrow  ones,  in- 
dustry brings  rewards  sanitary  as  well  as  economical. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  faculty  of  organization1  as  account- 
ing for  much  of  the  difference  in  the  efficiency  of  labor 
between  England  and  France,  for  example.  I  beg  to  insist 
on  this  with  reference  to  the  point  of  the  wear  and  tear 
of  the  laboring  force.  Those  who  are  familiar  with  the 
movements  of  armies  know  that  a  body  of  troops  may  be 
marched  thirty  miles  in  a  day  if  kept  in  a  steady,  equable 
motion,  with  measured  periods  of  rest,  and  not  be  brought 
into  camp,  at  night,  so  tired  as  another  body  of  troops  that 
have  come  only  half  the  distance,  but  have  been  fretted  and 
worried,  now  delayed  and  now  crowded  forward,  every 


1  The  famous  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  Exporta- 
tion of  Tools  and  Machinery  dwelt  on  the  "  want  of  arrangement  in 
foreign  manufactories,"  as  an  important  reason  for  the  superior  cheap- 
ness of  production  in  England. 

In  the  evidence  given  before  them  is  found  (p.  363)  the  following 
highly-suggestive  remark  :  "  A  cotton  manufacturer  who  left  Manches- 
ter seven  years  ago  would  be  driven  out  of  the  market  by  the  men 
who  are  now  living  in  it,  provided  his  knowledge  had  not  kept  pace 
with  those  who  have  been  during  that  time  constantly  profiting  by  the 
progressive  improvements  that  have  taken  place  in  that  period.  This 
progressive  knowledge  and  experience  is  our  great  power  and  advan« 
tage." 


ORGANIZATION  IN  INDUSTRY.  71 

portion  of  the  column  balked  by  turns,  and  kept  waiting 
for  long  periods  in  that  most  wearing  expectation  of  instant 
movement.  JSTow,  this  is  not  an  extreme  contrast  as  regards 
military  movements  ;  nor  need  any  thing  be  taken  from  its 
extent  when  we  come  to  apply  it  to  the  operations  of  in- 
dustry. In  an  establishment  where  each  person  has  his 
place  and  perfectly  knows  his  duty,  where  work  never 
chokes  its  channels  and  never  runs  low,  where  nothing  ever 
comes  out  wrong  end  foremost,  where  there  is  no  fretting 
or  chafing,  where  there  are  no  blunders  and  no  catastrophes, 
where  there  is  no  clamor  and  no  fuss,  a  pace  may  be  main- 
tained which  would  kill  outright  the  operatives  of  a  noisy, 
ill-disciplined,  badly-organized  shop.  For,  as  was  said  in 
opening  this  subject  of  the  efficiency  of  labor,  there  is  in 
all  industry  a  positive  and  a  negative  element.  Waste  is 
inseparable  from  work  ;  but  the  proportions  in  which  the 
two  shall  appear  may  be  made  to  vary  greatly.  It  is  only 
when  we  see  a  perfectly-trained  operative  performing  his 
task  that  we  realize  how  much  of  what  the  undisciplined 
and  ignorant  call  their  work  is  merely  waste ;  how  little 
of  their  expenditure  of  muscular  and  nervous  force  really 
goes  to  the  object ;  how  much  of  it  is  aside  from,  or  in 
opposition  to,  that  object.  And  the  remark  applies  not 
alone  to  the  exertions  of  the  individual  but,  in  a  still  higher 
degree,  to  the  operations  of  bodies  of  men. 

"  It  is  not,"  says  Mr.  Laing,  "  the  expertness,  dispatch, 
and  skill  of  the  operative  himself  that  are  concerned  in  the 
prodigious  amount  of  his  production  in  a  given  time,  but 
the  laborer  who  wheels  coals  to  his  fire,  the  girl  who  makes 
ready  his  breakfast,  the  whole  population,  in  short,  from 
the  pot-boy  who  brings  his  beer,  to  the  banker  who  keeps 
his  employer's  cash,  are  in  fact  working  to  his  hand  with 
the  same  quickness  and  punctuality  that  he  works  with 
himself."1 

We  have  some  interesting  instances  in  proof  that  such 

1  Notes  of  a  Traveller,  p.  290. 


72  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

industrial  superiority  as  has  been  described  is  not  due  alone 
to  differences  of  stock  and  breeding  or  of  general  intelli- 
gence, but  that  strangers  placed  within  the  same  industrial 
environment,  and  afforded  opportunities  of  like  technical 
education,  tend  steadily,  and  it  may  be  rapidly,  to  advance 
towards  the  efficiency  of  the  native  laborer.  Thus  Mr. 
Brassey,  after  dwelling  on  the  advantages  of  carrying  out 
English  navvies,  at  vast  expense,  even  to  Canada  or  to 
Queensland,  adds  significantly :  "  The  superiority  of  the 
English  workmen  was  most  conspicuous  when  they  first 
commenced  work  in  a  country  in  which  no  railways  had 
been  previously  constructed."1 

The  Commissioners  (1867)  on  the  Employment  of  "Women 
and  Children  in  Agriculture,  in  their  second  report,8  1869, 
give  the  results  of  a  very  considerable  experiment  in  drain- 
ing in  Northumberland,  extended  over  a  series  of  years,  in 
which  large  numbers  both  of  English  and  Irish  were  em- 
ployed, from  which  it  appears  that  "  whereas  the  English 
beginner  earns  an  average  of  four  shillings  a  week  more 
than  the  Irish  beginner,  better  food  and  about  ten  years' 
practice  reduce  the  difference  to  Is.  4d"  And  Mr. 
Chadwick  states3  "  that  agricultural  laborers  who  have 
joined  gangs  of  navvies  and  have  been  drilled,  with  them, 
into  their  energetic  piece-work  habits,  on  returning  to  farm 
labor  will  do  their  tasks  of  work  in  half  the  time  of  the 
common  day-laborers.  Examples,"  he  adds,  "  of  the  high- 
est order  of  agricultural  piece-work,  with  increased  wages 
closely  approaching  manufacturing  wages,  are  presented  in 
the  market-garden  culture  near  the  metropolis." 

VI.  The  last  reason  which  I  shall  assign  for  the  superior 
efficiency  of  individual  laborers,  classes  of  laborers,  or  na- 
tions of  laborers,  is  cheerfulness  and  hopefulness  in  labor, 
growing  out  of  self-respect  and  social  ambition  and  the 
laborer's  personal  interest  in  the  result  of  his  work. 

1  Work  and  Wages,  p.  117.  a  P.  104. 

3  Statistical  Journal,  xxviii.,  p.  307. 


INEFFICIENCY  OF  SLAVE  LABOR.  73 

I  have  spoken  of  causes  which  affect  the  laborer's  bone 
and  sinew,  his  physical  integrity  and  his  muscular  activity. 

I  have  spoken  also  of  causes  which  affect  his  intellectual 
qualification  for  his  work,  the  intelligence  which  shall  di- 
rect his  bodily  powers  to  the  end  of  production.  The 
causes  now  in  view  are  moral,  affecting  the  will. 

After  all,  it  is  in  the  moral  elements  of  industry  that  we 
find  the  most  potent  cause  of  differences  in  efficiency.  If 
it  constitutes  one  a  sentimentalist  to  recognize  the  power  of 
sentiment  in  human  action,  whether  in  politics  or  in  econo- 
mics, the  writer  gladly  accepts  the  appellation.  Cheerful- 
ness and  hopefulness  in  the  laborer  are  the  spring  of  exer- 
tions in  comparison  with  which  the  brute  strength  of  the 
slave  or  the  eye-server  is  but  weakness. 

The  inferiority  of  the  labor  of  the  slave1  to  that  of  the 
freeman,  even  of  the  lowest  industrial  grade,  is  proverbial. 
Slave  labor  is  always  and  everywhere  ineffective  and  waste- 
ful because  it  has  not  its  reward.2  No  matter  how  com- 
plete the  authority  of  the  master  over  the  person  and  the 
life,  he  cannot  command  all  the  faculties  of  his  slave.  The 
slave  may  be  made  to  work,  but  he  can  not  be  made  to 
think  ;  he  may  be  made  to  work,  but  he  can  not  be  kept 
from  waste  ;  to  work,  indeed,  but  not  with  energy.  En- 
ergy is  not  to  be  commanded,  it  must  be  called  forth  by 
hope,  ambition,  and  aspiration.  The  whip  only  stimulates 
the  flesh  on  which  it  is  laid.  It  does  not  reach  the  parts 
of  the  man  where  lie  the  springs  of  action.  No  brutality 
of  rule  can  evoke  even  the  whole  physical  power  of  a  hu- 
man being.  The  man  himself,  even  if  he  would,  can  not 

1  Prof.  Cairnes,  in  his  able  work  on  "  The  Slave  Power,"  sums  up  the 
economical  defects  of  slave  labor  under  three  heads  :  "  It  is  given  re- 
luctantly ;  it  is  unskilful ;  it  is  wanting  in  versatility."  (P.  44.) 

2  "  The  experience  of  all  ages  and  nations,  I  believe,  demonstrates 
that  the  work  done  by  slaves,  though  it  appears  to  cost  only  their 
maintenance,  is,  in  the  end,  the  dearest  of  any.  A  person  who  can 
acquire  no  property  can  have  no  other  interest  but  to  eat  as  much  and 
to  labor  as  little  as  possible."— Adam  Smith,  Wealth  of  Nations,  i.  390^ 
39L 


74  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION". 

render  his  own  best  service  unless  some  passion  of  the 
higher  nature,  love,  gratitude,  or  hope,  be  awakened.  The 
nervous  force,  which  is  to  the  muscular  what  the  steam  is 
to  the  parts  of  the  engine,  is  only  in  a  small  degree  under 
the  control  of  the  conscious  will.  It  is  a  little  fire  only 
that  fear  kindles,  and  it  is  a  little  force  only  that  is  gene- 
rated thereby  to  move  the  frame.  I  speak  of  fear  alone, 
that  is,  mere  fear  of  evil.  When  love  of  life  and  home 
and  friends  are  present  and  give  meaning  to  fear,  the 
utmost  energies  may  be  evoked ;  but  not  by  fear  alone, 
which  is,  the  rather,  paralyzing  in  its  effect. 

Were  it  not  for  this  impotence  of  the  lash,  the  nations 
would  either  not  have  risen  from  the  once  almost  universal 
condition  of  servitude,  or  would  have  risen  far  more  slowly. 
The  slave  has  always  been  able  to  make  it  for  his  master's 
interest  to  sell  him  freedom.  He  could  always  afford  to 
pay  more  than  could  be  made  out  of  him.  This  is  a  well- 
recognized  principle,  and  hence  the  former  slave  States  of 
the  American  Union,  building  their  political  and  social  in- 
stitutions on  slaver}7"  as  the  corner-stone,  had  to  forbid  en- 
tirely or  to  put  under  serious  disabilities  the  exercise  of 
manumission.  Even  with  the  little  the  brutalized  black 
could  apprehend  of  the  privileges  of  freedom,  even  with 
his  feeble  hopes  and  aspirations,  condemned,  as  he  knew, 
by  his  color  to  perpetual  exclusion,  he  could  always  buy 
himself  if  permitted.  This  unprofitableness  of  slave  or 
bond  labor1  has  prepared  the  way  for  those  great  changes, 
generally,  it  is  true,  effected  immediately  under  the  pressure 
of  political  necessities,2  which  have  transformed  whole  pop- 
ulations of  slaves  or  serfs  into  nations  of  freemen. 


1  Mr.  Turnbull,  in  his  work  on  Austria,  says  :  "  A  large  Bohemian 
proprietor,  who  with  his  brothers  counted  on  their  estates  18,000  sub- 
jects, has  frequently  observed  to  me  that  he  found  it  usually  more 
advantageous  to  accept  even  a  very  small  part  of  the  legal  commuta- 
tion-money, and  to  hire  labor  from  others,  than  to  take  it  in  kind  from 
those  who  were  bound  to  yield  it." 

*  Instance  the  action  of  the  nobles  of  Hungary,  at  the  outbreak  of 


HOPEFULNESS  IN  LABOR.  75 

But  great  as  is  the  superiority,  arising  from  this  cause 
alone,  of  free  over  serf  or  slave  labor,  the  difference  is  yet 
not  so  great  as  exists  between  grades  of  free  labor,  as  cheer- 
fulness and  hopefulness  in  labor,  due  to  self-respect  and 
social  ambition,  are  found,  in  greater  or  in  less  degree, 
animating  classes  and  communities  of  laborers. 

It  is  in  the  proprietor  of  land  under  equal  laws  that  we 
find  the  moral  qualities  which  are  the  incentive  of  industry 
most  highly  developed.  Arthur  Young's  saying  has  be- 
come proverbial :  "  Give  a  man  the  secure  possession  of  a 
bleak  rock,  and  he  will  turn  it  into  a  garden ;'"  as  also 
his  other  saying,  "  The  magic  of  property  turns  sand  into 
gold."2  The  energy  which  fear  and  pain  can  not  command, 
joy  and  hope  call  forth  in  its  utmost  possibilities.  The 
man  not  only  will,  he  can.  The  waste  of  muscular  force 
is  perhaps  not  half  as  great  in  toil  which  is  taken  up  freely 
and  gladly.  Nervous  exhaustion  comes  late  and  comes 
slowly  when  the  laborer  sees  his  reward  manifestly  grow- 
ing before  his  eyes. 

It  is  the  fulness  and  the  directness  of  this  relation  of 
labor  to  its  reward  which,  without  bell  or  whip,  drives  the 
peasant  proprietor  afield,  and, 

"  From  the  rising  of  the  lark  to  the  lodging  of  the  lamb," 

the  revolution  of  1848,  in  transmuting  the  urbarial  tenure  of  lands  into 
unrestricted  tenure  by  freehold.  "  By  this  great  and  voluntary  con- 
cession," says  Alison,  "  the  property  of  500,000  families,  consisting  of 
little  estates  from  30  to  60  acres  each,  and  comprehending  nearly  half 
a  kingdom,  was  at  once  converted  from  a  feudal  tenure,  burdened  with 
numerous  duties,  into  absolute  property." — History  of  Europe,  xxii. 
612. 

1  "  An  activity  has  been  here  that  has  swept  away  all  difficulties 
before  it,  and  has  clothed  the  very  rocks  with  verdure.     It  would  be  a 
disgrace  to  common-sense  to  ask  the  cause  :  the  enjoyment  of  proper- 
ty must  have  done  it.     Give  a  man  the  secure  possession  of  a  bleak 
rock,  and  he  will  turn  it  into  a    garden  ;  give  him  a  nine  years 
lease  of  a  garden,  and  he  will  convert  it  into  a  desert." — Travels  iq 
France,  Pinkerton,  iv.  122. 

2  How  the  magic  of  property  turns  sand  into  mold,  a  truer  source  of 
wealth  than  placers  or  auriferous  quartz,  has  been  shown  in  the  mari- 
time districts  of  Belgium. 


76  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

employs  his  every  energy,  directed  by  all  his  intelligence, 
towards  the  maximum  of  production  with  the  minimum  of 
loss  and  waste.  Thus  it  is  that  Mr.  Inglis  describes  the 
peasantry  of  Zurich : 

"  When  I  used  to  open  my  casement,  between  four  and 
five  in  the  morning,  to  look  out  upon  the  lake  and  the  dis- 
tant Alps,  I  saw  the  laborer  in  the  fields  ;  and  when  I  re- 
turned from  an  evening  walk,  long  after  sunset,  as  late 
perhaps  as  half  past  eight,  there  was  the  laborer,  mowing 
his  grass  or  tying  up  his  vines." 

"  No  men  in  the  world,"  says  Prof.  liearn,  "  exhibit  a 
greater  degree  of  habitual  energy  than  the  Scottish  subjects 
of  Queen  Victoria ;  yet  when  her  great-grandfather  was 
heir  to  the  throne,  the  Scottish  people  were  conspicuous 
for  their  incorrigible  indolence.  The  lazy  Scotch  were  in 
the  last  century  as  notorious  as  the  lazy  Irish1  of  a  later  day. 
In  both  countries  a  like  effect  was  produced  by  a  like 
cause."8 

When  we  turn  from  the  proprietor  of  land  to  the  hired 
laborer,  we  note  at  once  a  loss  of  energy.  In  the  constitu- 
tion of  things  it  can  not  be  otherwise.  When  the  relation 
of  labor  to  its  reward  becomes  indirect  and  contingent, 
and  the  workman  finds  that  the  difference,  to  himself,  of 
very  faithful  or  but  little  faithful  service  is  only  to  be  ex- 
perienced in  a  remote  and  roundabout  way,  according  as 
the  master's  future  ability  to  employ  him  may  be  in  a  de- 
gree affected  thereby,  his  own  present  wages  being  fixed 
by  contract,  and  secure  upon  compliance  with  the  formal 
requirements  of  service  ;  or  according  as  his  own  reputa- 
tion for  efficiency  or  inefficiency  may  lead  to  his  being 
longer  retained  or  earlier  discharged,  in  the  event  of  a  fu- 
ture reduction  of  force — I  say,  when  the  relation  of  labor 

1  Arthur  Young  in  1777  described  the  Irish  as  "  lazy  to  an  excess  at 
work,  but  spiritedly  active  at  play"  (Pinkerton,  iii.  872.)  When  the 
Irishman  has  a  fair  chance  under  equal  laws,  he  imports  all  this  ac- 
tivity into  his  work. 

a  Plutology,  p.  41. 


FAITHFULNESS  IN  WAGE  LABOR.  77 

to  its  reward  becomes  thus  indirect  and  contingent,  the 
workman  not  only  will  not,  he  can  not,  being  man,  labor  as 
he  would  labor  for  himself.  Even  without  the  least  wilful 
intention  to  shirk  exertion  or  responsibility,  there  will  be, 
there  must  be,  a  falling  off  in  energy  and  in  carefulness  :  a 
falling  off  which  will  make  a  vast  difference  in  production 
long  before  it  is  sufficiently  a  subject  of  consciousness  on 
the  part  of  the  laborer  himself  to  become  "  eye-service,"  or 
of  observation  on  the  part  of  the  employer  to  lead  to  com- 
plaint. 

But  the  loss  of  energy  and  carefulness  due  to  the  making 
distant  or  doubtful  the  reward  of  extra  exertion  on  the 
part  of  the  workman,  will  be  much  greater  with  some  than 
with  others  under  precisely  similar  conditions,  and  will  vaiy 
greatly,  also,  as  conditions  vary.  Whether  it  be  superiority 
in  faith,  in  conscience,  or  in  imagination,1  that  makes  the 
difference,  there  are  those  who  can  work  in  another's 
cause  almost  as  zealously  and  prudently  as  if  it  were  in 
their  own.  Such  men  more  clearly  apprehend,  however 
they  come  to  do  it,  the  indirect  and  remote  rewards  of  zeal 
and  fidelity,  or,  apprehending  these  no  more  strongly  than 
others,  they  are  yet  better  able  to  direct  their  energies  to 
an  end,  and  control  and  keep  under  the  appetites  and  im- 
pulses which  make  against  a  settled  purpose.  Some  men, 
some  races  of  men,  are  easily  recognized  as  more  genuine, 
honest,  and  heroic  than  others,  and  these  differences  in 
manly  quality  come  out  nowhere  more  conspicuously  than 
in  the  degrees  of  interest  and  zeal  exhibited  in  hired  labor. 


I  have  not  chosen  to  introduce  into  the  body  of  the  fore- 
going discussion  the  effects  of  drunkenness  and  dishonesty 


1  I  will  guard  myself  against  a  critic's  sneer  at  the  introduction  of 
this  word  into  a  treatise  on  wages  by  citing  Mr.  Mill's  remark,  "  It  is 
very  shallow,  even  in  pure  economics,  to  take  no  account  of  the  influ- 
ence of  imagination."— Pol.  Econ.,  i.  392,893. 


78  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

in  reducing  the  efficiency  of  labor.  Throughout  all  that 
has  been  said  the  laborer  has  been  assumed  to  be  temper- 
ate and  well-intentioned.  Of  the  frightful  waste  of  pro- 
ductive power,  through  both  the  diminution  of  work  and 
the  increase  of  waste,  which  results  from  the  vice  of 
drunkenness,  so  lamentably  characterizing  certain  races,  it 
can  not  be  necessary  to  speak.  More  than  all  the  festivals 
of  the  Greek  or  the  Roman  church,  the  worship  of  "  Saint 
Monday"1  reduces  the  current  wages  of  labor,  while  leaving 
its  ineffaceable  marks  on  heart  and  brain  and  hand.  The 
want  of  common  honesty  between  man  and  man,  though 
happily  less  frequent  than  the  indulgence  of  vicious  appe- 
tites, works  even  deeper  injury  to  industry  where  it  pre- 
vails in  any  considerable  degree.  "  A  breach  of  trust 
among  the  stoneworkers  of  Septmoncel,"  says  Lord  Bra- 
bazon,  in  his  report  of  1872  on  the  condition  of  the  indus- 
trial classes  of  France,  "  would  be  sufficient  to  cause  the 
banishment  of  this  rich  industry  from  the  mountains  of  the 
Jura  to  the  workshops  of  Paris  and  Amsterdam  ;"2  and  the 
same  judicious  reporter  states  that  the  abstraction  of  the 
silk  given  to  the  Lyons  workmen  to  manufacture  "  has 
always  weighed  heavily  on  the  trade  of  that  city."  "  To 
meet  this,"  says  M.  Beaulieu,  in  his  Populations  Ouvrieres, 
"  the  manufacturer  has  but  one  resource,  the  diminution 
of  the  rate  of  wages.  Either  the  factory  or  workshop 
must  be  closed  or  wages  must  be  lowered.  There  is  no 
middle  course,  and  in  either  case  the  workman  is  the 
sufferer."  It  need  not  be  said  that  the  illicit  gains  thus 
obtained — sold  as  the  plunder  is  surreptitiously,  under 
penalty  of  the  galleys — have  afforded  a  very  inadequate 


1  "  Almost  invariably  an  unemployed  day  in  Belgium."    (Report  of 
Mr.  Consul  Grattan  on  the  condition  of  the  industrial  classes,  1872, 
p.  19.)    Much  the  same  story  comes  from  Norway  and  Sweden,  Eng- 
land and  Scotland,  whose  inhabitants  we  reckon  among  the  noblest 
peoples  of  the  world. 

2  P.  67. 


WAGES  THE  ENCOURAGEMENT  OF  INDUSTRY.      79 

compensation  to  the  workmen  for  the  loss  which  their  dis- 
honesty inflicted  upon  the  trade. 

I  can  not  better  close  this  extended  discussion  of  the  causes 
which  contribute  to  the  efficiency  of  labor  than  by  intro- 
ducing two  extracts,  the  first  from  Dr.  Kane's  work  on  the 
Industrial  Resources  of  Ireland,  in  which  he  accounts  very 
justly  for  the  difference  between  the  Irish  and  the  English 
laborer  of  that  period  ;  the  second  from  Adam  Smith's 
Wealth  of  Nations.  Both  are  profoundly  significant,  and 
I  ask  the  reader's  careful  consideration  of  them  with  refe- 
rence to  the  principles  previously  discussed,  and  also  with 
reference  to  the  doctrine  of  the  wages  fund,  to  be  treated 
hereafter. 

"  A  wretched  man,"  says  Dr.  Kane,  "  who  can  earn  by 
his  exertion  but  four  or  five  shillings  a  week,  on  which  to 
support  his  family  and  pay  the  rent  of  a  sort  of  habitation, 
must  be  so  ill-fed  and  depressed  in  mind  that  to  work  as 
a  man  should  work  is  beyond  his  power.  Hence  there  are 
often  seen  about  employments  in  this  country  a  number  of 
hands  double  what  would  be  required  to  do  the  same  work 
in  the  same  time  with  British  laborers.  •  •  •  When  1 
say  that  the  men  thus  employed  at  low  wages  do  so  much 
less  real  work,  I  do  not  mean  that  they  intentionally  idle, 
or  that  they  reflect  that  as  they  receive  so  little  they  should 
give  little  value ;  on  the  contrary,  they  do  their  best  honestly 
to  earn  their  wages  ;  but,  supplied  only  with  the  lowest  de- 
scriptions of  food,  and  perhaps  in  insufficient  quantity, 
they  have  not  the  physical  ability  for  labor,  and  being  with- 
out any  direct  prospect  of  advancement,  they  are  not  ex- 
cited by  that  laudable  ambition  to  any  display  of  superior 
energy.  If  the  same  men  are  placed  in  circumstances 
where  a  field  for  increased  exertion  is  opened  to  them,  and 
they  are  made  to  understand,  what  at  first  they  are  rather 
incredulous  about,  that  they  will  receive  the  full  value  of 
any  increased  labor  they  perform,  they  become  new  beings, 
the  work  they  execute  rises  to  the  highest  standard,  and 
they  earn  as  much  money  as  the  laborers  of  any  other 


80  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

country.     Wages  are  no  longer  low,  ~but  labor  is  not  on  that 
account  any  dearer  than  it  has  been  before"1 

"  The  liberal  reward  of  labor,"  says  Adam  Smith,8  "  as  it 
encourages  the  propagation,  so  it  encourages  the  industry,  of 
the  common  people.  The  wages  of  labor  are  the  encourage- 
ment of  industry,  which,  like  every  other  human  quality, 
improves  in  proportion  to  the  encouragement  it  receives. 
A  plentiful  subsistence  increases  the  bodily  strength  of  the 
laborer,  and  the  comfortable  hope  of  bettering  his  condition 
and  ending  his  days  perhaps  in  ease  and  plenty  animates 
him  to  exert  that  strength  to  the  utmost.  Where  wages 
are  high,  accordingly,  we  shall  always  find  the  workmen 
more  active,  diligent,  and  expeditious  than  where  they  are 
low :  in  England,  for  example,  than  in  Scotland ;  in  the 
neighborhood  of  great  towns  than  in  remote  country  places." 

1  Pp.  397,  398.  2  Wealth  of  Nations,  i.  86. 


CHAPTER  IY. 

THE   DEGRADATION   OF   LABOR. 

I  USE  the  term,  degradation  of  labor,  here  in  the  sense 
of  the  reduction  of  the  laborer  from  a  higher  to  a  lower 
industrial  grade. 

The  constant  imminence  of  this  change,  the  smallness  of 
the  causes,  often  accidental  in  origin  and  temporary  in  du- 
ration, which  may  produce  it,  and  the  almost  irreparable 
consequences  of  such  a  catastrophe,  are  not  sufficiently  at- 
tended to  in  discussions  of  wages.  To  the  contrary,  it  is 
the  self -protecting  power  of  labor  which  is  dwelt  upon.  It 
is  shown  how,  if  by  any  insidious  cause,  or  from  any  sud- 
den disaster  in  trade  or  production,  be  the  same  local  or 
general,  industry  is  impaired  and  employment  diminished, 
labor  immediately  sets  itself,  by  natural  laws,  to  right  itself, 
by  withholding  increase  of  population,  or  by  migrating 
to  more  fortunate  localities. 

The  same,  if  labor  be  crowded  down  by  the  power  of 
capital,  or  by  unjust  laws :  through  economical  harmonie9 
which  have  excited  the  admiring  gratitude  of  many  writers, 
the  vindication  of  the  laboring  class  is  effected  automati- 
cally and  peacefully,  without  revolution  and  without  ma- 
chinery. The  excessive  profits  which  the  employing  class 
are  thus  enabled  for  a  time  to  make,  increase  the  capital  of 
the  community,  and  thus  give  enhanced  employment  to 
laborers,  so  that,  in  the  end,  it  is  quite  as  well  as  if  the 
money  had  gone  in  wages  instead  of  profits.  Thus  Prof. 
Perry  says :  "  If  capital  gets  a  relatively  too  large  reward, 


82  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

nothing  can  interrupt  the  tendency  that  labor  shall  get,  in 
consequence  of  that,  a  larger  reward  the  next  time.  ...  If 
capital  takes  an  undue  advantage  of  labor  at  any  point,  as 
unfortunately  it  sometimes  does,  somebody  at  some  other 
point  has,  in  consequence  of  that,  a  stronger  desire  to  em- 
ploy laborers,  and  so  the  wrong  tends  to  right  itself.  This 
is  the  great  conservative  force  in  the  relations  of  capital  to 
labor."1 

Now,  of  the  degrees  of  celerity  and  certainty  with  which 
population  does,  in  fact,  adapt  itself  to  changes  in  the  seats 
or  in  the  forms  of  industry,  or  assert  itself  against  the  en- 
croachments of  the  employing  class  or  the  outrages  of  leg- 
islation, I  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  with  some  fulness 
hereafter  (Chapter  XI.).  But  I  desire  at  the  present  tune, 
in  close  connection  with  our  discussion  of  the  causes  which 
contribute  to  the  efficiency  of  labor,  to  point  out  the  conse- 
quences of  any  failure  or  undue  delay  on  the  part  of  popu- 
lation in  thus  resenting  the  loss  of  employment  or  the  re- 
duction of  wages. 

The  trouble  is,  these  changes  which  are  to  set  labor 
right  always  require  time,  and  often  a  very  long  time. 
There  is  danger,  great  danger,  that  meanwhile  men  will 
simply  drop  down  in  the  industrial  and  social  scale,  accept 
their  lot,  and  adapt  themselves  to  the  newly-imposed  con- 
ditions of  life  and  labor.2  If  this  most  melancholy  result 


1  The  Financier,  August  1, 1874. 

8  '•  There  is  considerable  evidence  that  the  circumstances  of  the  agri- 
cultural laborers  in  England  have  more  than  once  in  our  history  sus- 
tained great  permanent  deterioration  from  causes  which  operated  by 
diminishing  the  demand  for  labor,  and  which,  if  population  had  exer- 
cised its  power  of  self -adjustment  in  obedience  to  the  previous  standard 
of  comfort,  could  only  have  had  a  temporary  effect ;  but,  unhappily,  the 
poverty  in  which  the  class  was  plunged  daring  a  long  series  of  years 
brought  that  previous  standard  into  disuse,  and  the  next  generation, 
growing  up  without  having  possessed  those  pristine  comforts,  multi- 
plied in  turn  without  any  attempt  to  retrieve  them." — J.  S.  Mill,  Pol. 
Econ.,  i.  41. 

Mr.  Mill  here  explains  the  whole  permanent  effect  upon  the  grounds 


THE  DEGRADATION  OF  LABOR.  83 

takes  place,  then,  it  should  be  observed,  the  restorative 
changes  which  have  been  spoken  of  need  not  be  effected  at 
all.  All  things  settle  to  the  new  level ;  industrial  society 
goes  on  as  before,  except  that  there  is  a  lower  class  of 
citizens  and  a  lower  class  of  laborers.  There  is  thereafter 
no  virtue  at  all,  no  tendency  even,  in  strictly  industrial 
forces  or  relations  to  make  good  that  great  loss.  In  a 
word,  much  of  the  reasoning  of  the  schools  and  the  books 
on  this  subject  assumes  that  the  laboring  class  will  resent 
an  industrial  injury,  and  will  either  actively  seek  to  right 
themselves,  or  will  at  least  abide  in  their  place  without  sur- 
render until  the  economical  harmonies  have  time  to  bring 
about  their  retribution.  But  the  human  fact  (so  often  to 
be  distinguished  from  the  economical  assumption)  is,  there 
is  a  fatal  facility  in  submitting  to  industrial  injuries  which 
too  often  does  not  allow  time  for  the  operation  of  these 
beneficent  principles  of  relief  and  restoration.  The  in- 
dustrial opportunity  comes  around  again,  it  may  be,  but  it 
does  not  find  the  same  man  it  left :  he  is  no  longer  capable 
of  rendering  the  same  service ;  the  wages  he  now  receives 
arg.  perhaps  quite  as  much  as  he  earns. 
V^^  Let  us  take  successively  the  cases  of  a  reduction  of  wages 
\and  of  a  failure  of  employment.  Let  it  be  supposed  that 
a  combination  of  employers  seeking  their  own  immediate 
interests,  that  is,  to  get  labor  as  cheaply  as  possible,  per- 
haps under  some  pressure  brought  on  them  by  the  state  of 
the  market,  succeeds  in  effecting  a  reduction  of  the  wages 
of  common  labor,  in  a  given  community,  from  $1  to  75  cents 
per  day.  If  the  $1  previously  received  has  allowed  comforts 
and  luxuries  and  left  a  margin  for  saving,  and  especially  if 
intelligence  and  social  ambition  prevail  in  the  community. 


of  Malthus,  overlooking  the  equally  important  consideration  that, 
without  respect  to  the  numbers  of  the  laboring  class,  the  efficiency  of 
labor  must  have  been  seriously  impaired  by  inadequate  food  and 
clothing,  unhealthy  dwellings,  and,  more  than  all,  by  the  loss  of  hope- 
fulness, cheerfulness,  and  self-respect. 


84  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

tins  reduction  will  probably  be  resented  in  the  sense  that 
population  will  be  reduced  by  migration  or  by  absti- 
nence from  propagation  until  the  former  wages  are,  if 
possible,  restored.  But  if  the  previous  wages  have  been 
barely  enough  to  furnish  the  necessaries  of  life,  with  no 
margin  for  saving,  and  especially  if  the  body  of  laborers 
are  ignorant  and  unambitious,  the  probabilities  are  quite 
the  other  way.  The  falling  off  in  the  quantity  or  quality 
of  food  and  clothing,  and  in  the  convenience  and  healthful- 
ness  of  the  shelter  enjoyed,  will  at  once  affect  the  efficiency 
of  the  laborer.  With  less  food,  which  is  the  fuel  of  the 
human  machine,  less  force  will  be  generated ;  with  less 
clothing,  more  force  will  be  wasted  by  cold ;  with  scantier 
and  meaner  quarters,  a  fouler  air  and  diminished  access  to 
the  light  will  prevent  the  food  from  being  duly  digested 
in  the  stomach,  and  the  blood  from  being  duly  oxydized  in 
the  lungs  ;  will  lower  the  tone  of  the  system,  and  expose 
the  subject  increasingly  to  the  ravages  of  disease.  Now, 
in  all  these  ways  the  laborer  becomes  less  efficient  simply 
through  the  reduction  of  his  wages.  The  current  economy 
asserts  that  whatever  is  taken  off  from  wages  is  added  to 
profits,  and  that  hence  a  reduction  of  wages  will  increase 
capital  and  hence  quicken  employment,  and  hence,  in  turn, 
heighten  wages.  But  we  have  seen  it  to  be  quite  possible 
that  what  is  taken  from  wages  no  man  shall  gain.  It  is 
lost  to  the  laborer  and  to  the  world.  Now,  so  far  as  strictly 
economic  forces  are  concerned,  where  enters  the  restorative 
principle  ?  The  employer  is  not  getting  excessive  profits, 
to  be  expended  subsequently  in  wages.  The  laborer  is  not 
underpaid  :  he  earns  what  he  gets  now  no  better  than  he 
formerly  did  his  larger  wages.  , 

This  image  of  the  degradedTaborer  is  not  a  fanciful  one. 
There  are  in  England  great  bodies  of  population,  com- 
munities counting  scores  of  thousands,  which  have  come,  in 
just  this  way,  to  be  pauperized  and  brutalized  ;  the  inhabi- 
tants weakened  and  diseased  by  underfeeding  and  foul  air 
until,  in  the  second  generation,  blindness,  lameness,  and 


THE  FATE  OF  SPITALFIELDS.  85 

scrofula  become  abnormally  prevalent ;  hopeless  and  lost 
to  all  self-respect  so  that  they  can  scarcely  be  said  to  de- 
sire a  better  condition,  for  they  know  no  better  ;  and  still 
bringing  children  into  the  world  to  fill  their  miserable 
places  in  garrets  and  cellars,  and,  in  time,  in  the  wards  of 
the  workhouse. 

Such  a  region  is  Spitalfields,  where  a  large  popula- 
tion, once  reasonably  prosperous  and  self-respectful,  was 
ruined  by  a  great  change  in  the  conditions  of  the  silk 
manufacture.  The  severity  of  the  industrial  blows  dealt 
them  in  quick  succession  was  so  great  that  the  restorative 
principles  never  began  to  operate  at  all.  Spitalfields  suc- 
cumbed to  its  fate.  Instead  of  it  being  true  that  the  misery 
of  the  weavers  was  a  reason  to  them  to  emigrate,  it  consti- 
tuted the  very  reason  why  they  could  not  emigrate,  or 
would  not.  Instead  of  it  being  true  that  their  misery  was 
a  reason  to  them  not  to  propagate,  the  more  miserable  they 
became,  the  more  reckless,  also,  and  the  heavier  grew  their 
burdens.  As  a  consequence,  in  a  single  human  generation 
the  inhabitants  of  Spitalfields  took  on  a  type  suited  to  their 
condition.  Short-lived  at  best,  weakness,  decrepitude,  and 
deformity  made  their  labor,  while  they  lasted,  ineffective 
and  wasteful.  So  long  ago  as  1842  the  Poor-Law  Com- 
missioners reported  that  it  was  almost  a  thing  unknown 
that  a  candidate  from  this  district  for  appointment  in  the 
police  was  found  to  possess  the  requisite  physical  qualifi- 
cations for  the  force.1  "You  could  not,"  says  another 
witness,  "raise  a  grenadier  company  among  them  all." 
Yet  it  is  recorded  that  the  Spitalfields  volunteers  during 
the  French  wars  were  "  good-looking  bodies  of  men." 

But  if  this  loss  may  be  suffered  in  respect  to  the  physical 
powers  of  the  laborer  through  a  reduction  of  wages,  quite 
as  certainly  and  quite  as  quickly  may  his  usefulness  be  im- 
paired through  the  moral  effects  of  such  a  calamity.  And 
just  as  the  greatest  possibilities  of  industrial  efficiency  lie 

1  Report,  p.  202. 


86  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

in  the  creation  of  hopefulness,  self-respect,  and  social  am- 
bition among  the  laboring  class,  so  the  chief  possibilities  of 
loss  lie  in  the  discouragement  or  the  destruction  of  these 
qualities.  "We  have  seen  through  what  a  scale  the  laborer 
may  rise  in  his  progress  to  productive  power  ;  by  looking 
back  we  may  see  through  what  spaces  it  is  always  possible 
he  may  fall  under  the  force  of  purely  industrial  disasters. 
"  The  wages  of  labor,"  says  Adam  Smith,  "  are  the  en- 
couragement of  industry,  which,  like  every  other  human 
quality,  improves  in  proportion  to  the  encouragement  it 
receives."  If  this  be  true,  every  reduction  of  wages  must, 
in  some  degree,  diminish  the  efficiency  of  labor.  But 
it  is  when  the  reduction  begins  to  affect  the  power  of 
the  workman  to  maintain  himself  according  to  the  standard 
of  decency  which  he  has  set  for  himself  that  the  decline 
in  industrial  quality  goes  on  most  rapidly.  The  fact  that 
he  is  driven  to  squalid  conditions  does  not  merely  lower 
his  physical  tone  :  almost  inevitably  it  impairs  his  sense  of 
self-respect  and  social  ambition,  that  sense  which  it  is  so 
difficult  to  awaken,  so  fatally  easy  to  destroy.  Especially 
as  the  pinching  of  want  forces  his  family  into  quarters 
where  cleanliness  and  a  decent  privacy  become  impossible 
does  the  degradation  of  labor  proceed  with  fearful  rapidity.1 
Ambition  soon  fails  the  laborer  utterly ;  self-respect  disap- 
pears amid  the  beastly  surroundings  of  his  life  ;  the  spring 
of  effort  is  broken ;  it  may  be  he  becomes  dissipated  and 
irregular,  and  his  employer  can  not  afford  his  beggarly  pit- 

1  "  Modesty  must  be  an  unknown  virtue  ;  decency,  an  unimaginable 
thing,  where  in  one  small  chamber,  with  the  beds  lying  as  thickly  as 
they  can  be  packed,  father,  mother,  young  men,  lads,  grown  and  grow- 
ing-up  girls  are  herded  promiscuously ;  where  every  operation  of  the  toi- 
let and  of  nature— dressings,  undressings,  births,  deaths — is  performed 
within  the  sight  and  hearing  of  all ;  where  children  of  both  sexes  to  as 
high  an  age  as  13  or  14,  or  even  more,  occupy  the  same  bed  ;  where 
the  whole  atmosphere  is  sensual,  and  human  nature  is  degraded  into 
something  below  the  level  of  the  swine.  It  is  a  hideous  picture  ;  and 
the  picture  is  drawn  from  life." — Appendix  to  the  First  Report  of  the 
Poor-Law  Commissioners,  p.  34. 


INDUSTRIAL  INJURIES  REMAIN.  87 

tance  now  so  well  as  formerly  the  wages  of  his  hopeful 
labor. 

All  such  effects  tend  to  remain  and  perpetuate  them- 
selves. When  people  are  down,  economical  forces  solely 
are  more  likely  to  keep  them  down,  or  push  them  lower 
down,  than  to  raise  them  up.  It  is  only  on  the  assumption 
that  labor  will  resent  industrial  injuries,  either  by  seeking 
a  better  market  or  by  abstaining  from  reproduction,  that 
it  can  be  asserted  that  economical  laws  have  a  tendency  to 
protect  the  laboring  class  and  secure  their  interests.  Just 
so  far  as  laborers  abide  in  their  lot,  and  bring  forth  after 
their  kind,  while  suffering  industrial  hardship,  no  matter 
how  in  the  first  place  incurred,  the  whole  effect  and  ten- 
dency of  purely  economical  forces  is  to  perpetuate,  and  not 
to  remove,  that  hardship,  either  in  the  next  year  or  in  the 
next  generation.  Moral  and  intellectual  causes  only  can 
repair  any  portion  of  the  loss  and  waste  occasioned. 

If  such  are  the  unfortunate  liabilities  of  a  violent  reduc- 
tion of  wages,  it  will  of  course  appear,  without  any  extended 
illustration,  that  the  effects  of  a  protracted  failure  of  employ- 
ment must  be  even  more  injurious  to  the  efficiency  of  labor 
where  the  margin  of  life  is  at  the  best  narrow  and  no  accu- 
mulation of  savings  has  been  effected.  All  the  hardships 
of  the  conditions  described  are  here  aggravated  to  an  intol- 
erable degree,  and  it  is  more  than  is  to  be  expected  of  hu- 
man nature  if  despondency  and  despair  do  not  drive  the 
unhappy  laborer  to  the  dram-shop1  to  drown  his  sorrows 
and  his  fears  in  indulgences  which  will  leave  him  worse  in 
character  and  weaker  in  nerve  and  sinew.  However  in- 
dustry may  revive,  the  shattered  industrial  manhood  can 
never  be  fully  restored. 

But  perhaps  even  more  than  in  the  miserable  resort  to 
the  dram-shop,  the  fatal  effects  of  a  cessation  of  employ- 


lttC'est  surtout  pendant  les  epoques  de  cliomages  que  1'ouvrior.  no 
sachant  comment  employer  ses  heures,  hante  le  cabaret."— Rapport 
(M.  Ducarre)  Salaires  et  rapports  entre  ouvriers  et  patrons,  p.  269. 


THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

ment  upon  the  industrial  quality  are  seen  in  the  readiness 
with  which,  when  once  he  has  had  experience  of  public 
support,  the  laborer  takes  refuge  in  charity.  Rarely  is  char- 
acter found  robust  enough  to  throw  off  this  taint.  Let  a  man 
once  be  brought  to  that  painful  and  most  humiliating  ne- 
cessity, it  is  scarcely  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  ever  after 
he  must  be  counted  as  industrially  dead.  Where  first  he 
was  driven,  as  to  the  bitterness  of  death,  only  by  extremity 
of  suffering,  only  after  desperate  efforts  and  long  endur- 
ance, he  now  resorts  with  a  fatal  facility  on  the  first  sug- 
gestion of  want.  Known  to  his  comrades  as  having  re- 
ceived relief,  his  children  bearing  the  pauper-brand  among 
their  playmates,  all  ingenuous  sensibility  soon  disappears. 
"  We  can  not,"  says  Mr.  McCullagh  Torrens,  in  his  work 
"  The  Lancashire  Lesson,"  dealing  with  the  experiences  of 
England  during  the  Cotton  Famine  incident  to  our  war — 
"  we  can  not  help  marking  the  readiness  with  which,  on  the 
first  cessation  of  adequate  wages,  large  numbers  of  persons 
now  resort  to  rates  and  subscription  funds,  many  of  whom 
three  years  ago  would  have  shrunk  instinctively  from  such 
public  avowal  of  indigence."  This  is  the  despair  of  indus- 
try. The  pauper  lies  below  the  slave  in  the  industrial 
scale.  No  lower  depth  opens  downward  from  this. 

My  object,  I  repeat,  in  treating  here  this  topic  of  "  the 
degradation  of  labor"  is  to  point  out  the  constantly  immi- 
nent danger  that  bodies  of  laborers  will  not  soon  enough 
or  amply  enough  resent  industrial  injuries  which  may  be 
wrought  by  the  concerted  action  of  employers,  or  by  slow 
and  gradual  changes  in  production,  or  by  catastrophes  in 
business,  such  as  commercial  panics ;  and  upon  this,  and 
in  immediate  connection  with  the  discussion  of  the  causes 
which  contribute  to  the  efficiency  of  labor,  to  show  the  self- 
perpetuating  nature  of  such  industrial  injuries  under  the 
operation  of  the  very  economical  principles  which,  with 
alert  and  mobile  labor  intelligently  seeking  its  interests, 
would  secure  relief  and  restoration. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    LAW    OF   DIMINISHING   KETURNS. 

WE  have  now  reached  a  point  where  we  must  consider 
the  principles  which  govern  the  relations  of  population  to 
subsistence. 

Why  should  not  population  multiply  indefinitely  and 
still  find,  at  each  stage  of  increase,  food  ample  for  all  ? 
Nay,  with  the  power  there  is  in  mutual  help,  and  with  the 
wonderful  mechanical  advantages  which  result  from  the 
subdivision  of  industry  and  the  multiplication  of  occupa- 
tions, why  should  not  the  share  of  each  be  continually  aug- 
menting as  the  number  of  laborers  capable  of  rendering 
such  mutual  services  and  uniting  in  industrial  enterprises, 
increases  ? 

The  answer  to  these  questions  is  found  in  the  Law  of 
Diminishing  Returns  in  Agriculture.  Up  to  a  certain 
point,  the  increase  of  laborers  increases  the  product  not 
only  absolutely  but  relatively ;  that  is,  not  only  is  more  pro- 
duced in  the  aggregate,  but  the  product  is  larger  for  each 
laborer.  Two  men  working  over  a  square  mile  of  arable 
land  will  not  only  merely  produce  twice  as  much  as  one  man : 
they  will  produce  more  than  twice,  perhaps  three  tine- 
as much.  This  is  because  the  two  can  take  hold  together 
of  work  to  which  the  strength  of  either  alone  would  be  in- 
adequate, or  which  requires  that  one  person  shall  be  in  one 
place,  and  another  at  the  same  time  in  another  place,  in 
order  that  the  two  may  act  simultaneously,  as,  for  example, 
one  driving  oxen  and  the  other  holding  the  plough. 


90  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

Moreover,  where  the  two  are  not  working  together,  in  the 
usual  acceptation  of  that  term,  they  may  yet  help  each  other 
greatly  by  agreeing  to  divide  their  tasks.  Each,  confining 
himself  to  a  certain  part,  will  become,  for  that  reason,  more 
apt  and  dexterous,  will  learn  to  avoid  mistakes  and  save 
waste,  and  will  acquire  a  facility  in  production  which  would 
be  impossible  were  he  to  undertake  a  wider  and  more 
varied  line  of  duties. 

For  a  similar  reason,  three  men  will  not  merely  produce 
three  times  as  much  as  one :  they  will  probably  produce 
four  times,  perhaps  five  times,  as  much.  A  minuter  sub- 
division of  industry  will  become  possible,  and  a  more 
effective  assistance  in  those  parts  of  the  work  which  require 
the  actual  co-operation  of  the  different  members. 

Much  in  the  same  way  is  it  with  the  application  of  capital 
to  land.  Let  four  men  be  working  upon  a  square  mile  of 
arable  land,  having  the  use  of  a  capital  to  the  value  of  $25, 
comprising  rude  spades,  axes,  and  hoes.  Now,  double  that 
capital,  allowing  an  improvement  in  the  quality  of  the  tools 
or  an  increase  in  the  quantity  as  may  be  desired.  There 
will  be,  if  that  additional  capital  have  been  judiciously 
used,  an  increase  of  product  over  the  product  of  the  same 
men  when  employing  the  smaller  capital,  which  increase 
we  will  call  A.  If  we  place  in  the  hands  of  these  men  an- 
other $25  of  capital,  in  forms  appropriate  to  their  wants, 
making  $75  capital  in  all,  we  shall  have  another  incre- 
ment of  product ;  but  it  will  not  be  A  only,  but  A  plus 
something.  And  if,  again,  we  give  them  an  additional 
capital  of  $75,  making  $150  in  all,  including  now  a  horse, 
a  plough,  and  a  cart,  the  addition  made  thereby  to  their 
product  will  not  be  3A  merely :  it  may  be  5A ;  it  may 
be  10A  ;  it  may  be  20A. 

This  process  of  increasing  the  labor  and  capital  to  be 
applied  to  a  square  mile  of  arable  land  might,  as  we  need 
not  take  space  to  show,  be  continued  to  a  very  consider- 
able extent ;  and  all  the  while  it  would  remain  true  that 
the  product  was  increased  more  than  proportionally,  so 


INCREASING  RETURNS.  91 

that  a  continually  larger  share  could  be  assigned  to  each 
individual  laborer,  and  to  each  dollar  of  capital.  The 
two  principal  causes  for  such  increase  of  product,  if  we  con- 
fine our  attention  to  the  increase  in  the  number  of  laborers 
— as,  for  simplicity's  sake,  we  shall  hereafter  do — are 
those  already  indicated,  namely :  1st,  the  ability  of  men  actu- 
ally working  together  to  do  things  to  which  any  one  of  them 
would  be  singly  incompetent,  or  would  do  slowly,  painfully, 
and  imperfectly;  and  2d,  the  advantages  which  men 
acquire  by  dividing  their  tasks,  so  that  each  may  confine 
himself  to  a  single  line  of  duties,  and  acquire  a  higher  de- 
gree of  efficiency  therein. 

But  now  appears  a  new  opportunity  for  at  once  employ, 
ing  more  laborers  on  our  square-mile  tract,  and  increasing 
the  remuneration  of  each.  Let  us  suppose  there  are  12 
laborers,  and  that  the  increase  of  capital  has  been  such  as 
to  give  them  a  sufficiency  of  the  ordinary  tools  used  in 
agriculture  at  the  time.  Let  us  also  suppose  that  out  of 
their  previous  production  they  have  been  able  to  save  a 
considerable  store  of  provisions  and  other  necessaries  of 
life,  all  included  under  the  generic  name  capital.  They 
have  also  bred  livestock  till  they  have  a  pretty  full  supply 
of  working  animals. 

Up  to  this  time  they  have  been  cultivating  only  certain 
portions  of  the  tract  to  which  we  have  assigned  them. 
They  could  not  cultivate  the  whole  successfully  with  so 
few  hands,  and  they  have  accordingly  made  selection  < 
those  parts  which  were  best  suited  to  their  immediate  pur- 
poses.1     A  skilled  agriculturist  walking  over  the  tract,  kick 
ing  a  clod  now  and  then  on  the  cultivated  parts  with  his 
toe,  and  breaking  a  hole  with  his  heel,  here  and  there, 
through  the  natural  turf,  would  say  that  they  had  thus  far 
made  use  only  of  the  light,  warm,  sandy  soils  whi 

>  «  The  principle  which  guides  the  American  farmer  to  to  take  the 
1   most  paying  crop  which  can  be  grown  with  the  least  cost  oflc 
James  Caird's  Prairie  Farming,  p.  21. 


93  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

quick  returns  on  the  application  of  little  labor,  but  that 
there  were  other  portions  of  the  tract,  as  yet  wet  and  cold, 
with  a  strong,  deep  soil,  which  would  some  time,  with  la- 
bor and  capital,  be  much  better  worth  cultivating.  More- 
over, a  portion  of  the  tract  is  covered  with  wood,  and 
a  hundred  acres,  or  so,  lie  in  swamp,  useless,  and  even  pesti- 
ferous, to  our  young  community. 

Now,  having  reached  the  comparative  freedom  of  life  we 
have  described,  feeling  strong  in  their  united  labor  and 
their  accumulated  capital,1  they  resolve  to  undertake  the 
thorough  drainage  of  the  swamp ;  and  with  this  view 
invite  four  new  laborers  from  outside  to  join  fortunes  with 
them.  The  draining  of  the  swamp  involves  a  year's  labor, 
and  requires  the  community  to  give  up  a  year's  crop,  a 
thing  which  they  would  have  been  unable  to  do  at  an  earlier 
period  in  their  history,  but  which  their  accumulations  now 
render  possible.  The  ground  thus  drained  and  opened,  rich 
with  the  vegetable  deposits  of  centuries,  proves  to  be  by  far 
the  most  productive  portion  of  their  land.  So  far  as  they 
still  work  upon  the  old  lands  they  achieve  as  large  a  product 
as  before  ;  so  far  as  they  work  upon  the  n'ew  land  the  pro- 
duct is  greater ;  and  consequently  (as  we  are  assuming  a 
community  of  land,  of  labor,  and  of  wealth)  the  share  of 
each  is  greater  in  spite  of,  or  indeed  by  reason  of,  the  in- 
crease in  their  numbers. 

A  few  years  pass.  The  store  of  provisions  and  other 
necessaries,  of  implements  and  of  livestock,  which  was 
drawn  down  very  low  by  the  great  effort  of  draining  the 
swamp,  has  now,  from  the  increased  productiveness  of  the 
joint  estate,  grown  to  dimensions  larger  than  ever  before. 
The  community  is  now,  therefore,  in  a  position  to  under- 
take any  improvement  which,  though  involving  large  pre- 

1  "  In  a  new  country  and  among  poor  settlers  .  .  .  poor  land  is  a  rela- 
tive term.  Land  is  called  poor  which  is  not  suitable  to  a  poor  man,  which, 

on  mere  clearing  and  burning,  will  not  yield  good  first  crops 

Thus  that  which  is  poor  land  for  a  poor  man  may  prove  rich  land  to  a 
rich  man." — Prof.  Johnston's  Notes  on  North  America,  ii.  116, 117. 


INCREASING  RETURNS.  93 

sent  expenditures,  promises  to  be  remunerative  in  the  final 
result.  The  incentive  thus  arising  from  the  possession  of 
capital  joining,  as  it  chances,  with  the  arrival  of  four  new 
laborers  who  desire  to  cast  in  their  fortunes  with  the  young 
community,  leads  to  the  resolution  to  thoroughly  under- 
drain  the  rich,  deep  soils  which  have  been  lying  so  long 
cold  and  wet,  on  the  further  side  of  a  sharp,  rocky  ridge, 
while  the  thinner  but  dryer  and  wanner  parts  have  been 
cultivated  for  the  sake  of  their  quick  returns.  Another 
harvest  is  foregone  and  the  year  given  up  to  the  improve- 
ment, which  again  brings  the  stock  of  provisions  and  cloth- 
ing very  low,  and  reduces  the  tools  and  livestock  of  the 
community  to  the  smallest  dimensions  consistent  with 
working  efficiency ;  but  the  thing  is  done,  and  done  once 
for  all :  soils  richer  and  stronger  have  been  opened  to  til- 
lage, and  the  community,  now  consisting  of  20  laborers,  is 
able  to  withdraw,  in  the  main,  from  the  lighter,  sandy  soils, 
and  concentrate  their  energies  principally  on  the  site  of  the 
former  swamp,  and  on  the  parts  last  brought  under  cultiva- 
tion ;  and  now  the  product  per  man  is  notably  increased, 
while  the  capabilities  of  the  soil  are  so  liberal  that  the 
land  responds  to  every  increase  of  capital  with  constantly- 
increasing  returns. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  recite  the  cutting  down  of  the 
timber,  the  clearing  up  of  the  ground,  and  the  opening  of 
what  is,  after  all,  the  best  land  of  the  whole  tract.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  the  poorer  lands  are  now  given  up  entirely, 
and  the  community,  increased  by  accessions  from  abroad  to 
24  laborers,  working  on  none  but  those  soils  which  are  really 
in  the  broad  view  the  most  productive,  obtains  a  larger  per- 
capita  crop  than  ever  before. 

So  far  certainly  we  have  not  reached  a  condition  of 
"diminishing  returns."  On  the  contrary,  returns  have 
increased  with  and  through  the  increase  of  population. 
But  we  will  now  suppose  that  24  laborers  are  as  many  aa 
can  be  employed  to  the  best  advantage  on  the  good  lands 
of  the  tract  which  we  have  been  considering,  and  that  if 


94  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

25  laborers  were  to  be  engaged  the  product  would  be  more 
than  with  24 — f  or  that  is  a  matter  of  course — but  not  -^T  as 
much  more,  so  that,  with  community  of  labor  and  of 
wealth,  each  of  the  25  must  fain  be  content  with  a  little 
less  than  each  of  the  24  had  received ;  and,  in  the  same 
way,  were  still  another  laborer  to  appear,  the  26  would  pro- 
duce more  than  the  25  had  done,  to  be  sure,  but  not  -^  more, 
so  that  each  of  the  26  would  receive  less  even  than  each  of 
the  25  had  done.  This  would  be  a  condition  of  "  diminish- 
ing returns  ;"  and  this  condition  is  liable  to  be  reached  in 
the  course  of  the  settlement  of  any  region.1 

"We  will  suppose  our  community  to  become  aware  of 
this  condition,  and  thereon  to  resolve  that  no  further  acces- 
sions from  abroad  shall  be  received  ;  but  in  the  very  act  of 
so  resolving,  one  of  the  number  discovers  the  principle  of 
the  rotation  of  crops.  Heretofore  they  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  leave  every  year  a  portion  of  their  choicest  lands 
unsown,  having  learned  that  this  was  essential  to  keeping 
the  soil  in  its  highest  productive  power.  Thus  they  not 
only  lost  the  advantage  of  cultivating  these  choicest  por- 
tions of  their  domain,  but,  as  they  found  it  necessary  to 
plough  the  fallow  in  order  to  keep  down  the  weeds,  they 
had  to  lay  out  a  part  of  their  laboring-power  each  year  with- 
out any  result  in  the  crop  of  the  year.  But  the  discovery 
of  the  principle  of  rotation  changed  all  this.  The  dis- 


1  Prof.  Cairnes's  answer  to  those  who  deny  the  diminishing  produc- 
tiveness of  land  is  absolutely  conclusive.  "  If  any  one  denies  the  fact, 
it  is  open  to  him  to  refute  it  by  making  the  experiment.  Let  him 
show  that  he  can  obtain  from  a  limited  area  of  soil  any  required 
quantity  of  produce  by  simply  increasing  the  outlay — that  is  to  say,  that 
by  quadrupling  or  decupling  the  outlay,  he  can  obtain  a  quadruple  or 
decuple  return.  If  it  be  asked  why  those  who  maintain  the  affirma- 
tive of  the  doctrine  do  not  establish  their  views  by  actual  experiment, 
the  answer  is  that  the  experiment  is  performed  for  them  by  every  prac- 
tical farmer  ;  and  that  the  fact  of  the  diminishing  productiveness  of 
the  soil  is  proved  by  their  conduct  in  preferring  to  resort  to  inferior 
Boils  rather  than  force  unprofitably  soils  of  better  quality." — Logical 
Method,  etc.,  p.  35. 


INCREASING  RETURNS.  95 

coveiy,  in  a  word,  was  that  the  soil,  like  a  man  or  a  horse, 
may  rest  from  one  kind  of  work  while  doing  another ;  that 
to  the  soil  the  raising  of  two  different  crops  is  the  doing 
of  two  different  kinds  of  work  :  that  crop  A  draws  from  the 
soil  properties  a  ;  crop  B,  properties  5 ;  crop  C,  properties 
c ;  and  that  consequently  the  soil  may  be  recuperating  as 
to  properties  a  and  5,  while  bearing  crop  C  quite,  or  nearly, 
as  well  as  if  it  were  doing  nothing. 

JSTow,  this  discovery  of  the  principle  occurred,  we  will 
suppose,  just  in  time  to  prevent  the  disappointment  of  12 
worthy  laborers  who  had  come  a  great  distance,  hoping  to 
join  themselves  with  our  community,  but  were  on  the 
point  of  being  turned  away  on  the  ground  that  with  36 
laborers,  under  the  existing  system  of  fallows,  the  commu- 
nity would  be  obliged  to  return  to  some  of  the  less  produc- 
tive lands  which  had  been  abandoned.  With  rotation, 
however,  this  objection  no  longer  exists.  The  12  new- 
comers are  received,  and  inasmuch  as  the  laborers  in  the 
fields  are  now  relatively  more  concentrated,  not  having  to 
go  out  to  work,  or  to  haul  the  produce  over  fallow  spaces, 
and  inasmuch,  too,  as  the  increase  in  numbers  allows  a 
much  higher  degree  of  co-operation  and  a  minuter  subdivi- 
sion of  industry  (always  a  prolific  source  of  mechanical  ad- 
vantage), while  yet  all  are  working  on  the  better  lands,  the 
product  is  found  to  be  not  one  half  larger  only,  but  even 
more,  so  that  each  of  the  36  receives  more  than  each  of  the 
24  had  done. 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  take  our  reader's  time  to  relate 
how  the  simple  suggestion  that  muck  might  be  taken  from 
the  bed  of  the  old  swamp  and  spread  on  other  portions,  led 
to  the  employment  of  four  additional  laborers  from  abroad  ; 
or  how  the  invention1  of  a  new  plough  which  turned  up 
the  earth  from  18  inches  depth  instead  of  8,  as  by  the 
ploughs  previously  in  use,  allowed  the  number  of  laborers 

1  Be  it  remembered  that  in  our  community  there  are  neither  rents 
nor  royalties. 


96  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

to  rise,  one  by  one,  to  48,  not  only  with  no  diminution  of 
the  average  product,  but  with  its  positive  increase. 

Now,  the  above  illustrations  have  not  exhausted  the  num- 
ber or  exaggerated  the  scope  and  effect  of  advantages  in  the 
resort  from  inferior  to  better  soils,  in  the  accomplishment 
of  permanent  improvements,  in  the  invention  of  tools  and 
implements,  in  the  discovery  of  new  resources,  and  in 
the  utilization  of  waste,  which  may  enable  the  number  of 
laborers  in  any  given  country  to  increase  from  year  to  year 
without  the  part  of  each  being  diminished.1 

But  without  trying  further  my  reader's  patience,  I  will 
assume  that,  in  the  case  taken,  all  known  means  of  increas- 
ing the  product  proportionally,  or  more  than  proportionally, 
to  the  increase  of  the  number  of  laborers,  have  been  tried 
and  exhausted,  and  that  with  48  laborers  to  the  square- 
mile  tract  the  condition  of  "  diminishing  returns "  has 
been  reached,  so  that  any  increase  of  laborers  beyond  that 
point  will  result  in  a  diminished  per-capita  product.  In 
such  a  condition  the  remark  of  Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  applies  :  "  It 
is  in  vain  to  say  that  all  mouths  which  the  increase  of  man- 
kind calls  into  existence  bring  with  them  hands.  The  new 
mouths  require  as  much  food  as  the  old  ones,  and  the  hands 
do  not  produce  as  much."2  Let  it  be  borne  in  mind,  how- 
ever, that  the  aggregate  product  may  still,  and  may  even 

1  "  The  soil  of  England  produces  eight  times  as  much  food  as  it 
produced  500  years  ago." — Rogers,  Pol.  Econ. ,  p.  181.  Of  the  agriculture 
of  the  former  period,  Prof.  Rogers  says  :  "  In  those  days  half  the  ara- 
ble land  lay  in  fallow.  The  amount  produced  was,  to  take  wheat  as 
an  example,  about  eight  bushels  the  acre  in  ordinary  years,  i.e.,  little 
more  than  a  third  of  an  average  crop  at  the  present  time.  There 
were  no  artificial  grasses.  Clover  was  not  known,  nor  any  of  the 
familiar  roots.  As  a  consequence,  there  was  little  or  no  winter  feed, 
except  such  coarse  hay  as  could  be  made  and  spared.  Cattle  were 
small  and  stunted  by  the  privations  and  hard  fare  of  winter.  The 
average  weight  of  a  good  ox  was  under  four  cwt.  Sheep,  too,  were 
small,  poor,  and  came  very  slowly  to  maturity.  The  average  weight 
of  a  fleece  was  not  more  than  two  pounds.  With  ill-fed  cattle  there 
was  little  or  no  strong  manure." — Pol.  Econ.,  pp.  157, 158. 

*  Pol.  Econ.  i.  230. 


DIMINISHING  RETURNS.  97 

indefinitely,  be  increased  by  additional  labor.  England, 
densely  populated  and  highly  cultivated  as  that  country 
is,  has  not  begun  to  approach  the  state  where  additional 
labor  will  produce  no  appreciable  increase  of  crops. 
"  There  are,"  says  Prof.  Senior,  "  about  37,000,000  acres  in 
England  and  Wales.  Of  these  it  has  been  calculated  that 
not  85,000 — less,  in  fact,  than  one  four-hundredth  part — are 
in  a  state  of  high  cultivation,  as  hop-grounds,  nursery- 
grounds,  and  fruit  and  kitchen  gardens,  and  that  5,000,- 
000  are  waste."1  Prof.  Senior  proceeds  with  this  striking 
exposition  of  the  capabilities  of  production : 

"  If  the  utmost  use  were  made  of  lime  and  marl  and 
other  mineral  manures  ;  if,  by  a  perfect  system  of  drainage 
and  irrigation,  water  were  nowhere  allowed  to  be  excessive 
or  deficient ;  if  all  our  wastes  were  protected  by  enclosures 
and  planting ;  if  all  the  land  in  tillage,  instead  of  being 
scratched  by  the  plough,  were  deeply  and  repeatedly 
trenched  by  manual  labor  ;  if  minute  care  were  employed  in 
the  selecting  and  planting  of  every  seed  and  root,  and 
watchfulness  sufficient  to  prevent  the  appearance  of  a 
weed  ;  if  all  livestock,  instead  of  being  pastured,,  had  their 
food  cut  and  brought  to  them;  in  short,  if  the  whole 
country  were  subjected  to  the  labor  which  a  rich  citizen 
lavishes  on  his-patch  of  suburban  garden ;  if  it  were  pos- 
sible that  all  this  should  be  effected,  the  agricultural  pro- 
duce of  the  country  might  be  raised  to  ten  times,  or  indeed 
to  much  more  than  ten  times,  its  present  amount.  .  .  . 
But  although  the  land  in  England  is  capable  of  producing 
ten  times,  or  more  than  ten  times,  as  much  as  it  now  pro- 
duces, it  is  probable  that  its  present  produce  will  never  be 
quadrupled,  and  almost  certain  that  it  will  never  be  de- 
cupled." 


It  will  not  have  failed  to  be  observed  that  the  law  of 


1  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  82. 


98  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

diminishing  returns  does  not  apply  directly  to  mechanical 
industry.  Yet,  inasmuch  as  the  materials  of  that  industry 
are  all  of  an  agricultural  origin,  or  at  least  are  all  taken 
from  the  soil,  the  cost  of  manufactured  products  will  in- 
evitably be  enhanced  in  consequence.  All,  however, 
will  not  rise  equally  from  this  cause.  Those  in  which  the 
cost  of  the  material  is  relatively  small  may  for  a  long  time 
decline  in  price  in  spite  of  "  diminishing  returns ;"  those  in 
which  the  cost  of  the  material  is  relatively  large  may  increase 
steadily  in  spite  of  mechanical  inventions  and  improve- 
ments. 

In  1832  Mr.  Babbage  stated1  that  pig-lead  to  the  value 
of  £1  became  worth  when  manufactured  into 

£ 

Sheets  or  pipes  of  moderate  dimensions 1.25 

White-lead 2.60 

Ordinary  printing  characters 4.90 

The  smallest  type 28.30 

Copper  of  the  value  of  £1  became  worth  when  manu- 
factured into 

£ 

Copper  sheeting 1.26 

Household  utensils 4.77 

Metallic  cloth,  10,000  meshes  to  the  square  inch 52.23 

Bar-iron  of  the  value  of  £1  became  worth  when  manu- 
factured into 

£ 

Slit-iron  for  nails 1.10 

Natural  steel 1.42 

Horseshoes 2.55 

Gun-barrels,  ordinary 9.10 

Wood-saws 14.28 

Scissors,  best 446. 94 

Penknife-blades 657.14 

Sword-handles,  polished  steel 972.82 

Now,  it  is  evident  that  the  part  of  the  cost  of  the  nearly 
£1000  of  sword-handles,  instanced  by  Mr.  Babbage,  which 
is  affected  by  the  law  of  diminishing  returns,  is  the  few 

1  Economy  of  Manufactures,  pp.  163, 164. 


DIMINISHING  RETURNS.  99 

shillings'  worth  of  pig-iron  originally  taken  plus  the  few 
shillings'  worth  of  coal  necessary  to  produce  the  power 
and  the  melting  and  the  tempering  heat  for  the  successive 
processes  of  manufacture.  With  the  progress  of  chemical 
and  mechanical  discovery,  therefore,  the  cost  of  the  sword- 
handle  and  the  penknife-blade  will  approach  that  of  the 
horseshoe  and  the  nail-iron.  The  efficiency  of  human 
labor,  again,  in  the  production  of  wheat  may  have  in- 
creased sixfold  since  the  days  of  the  Odyssey  ;  the  efficiency 
of  labor  in  converting  that  wheat  into  bread,  as  M. 
Chevalier  computes  it,  has  been  multiplied  one  hundred 
and  forty-four  times.  The  efficiency  of  labor  in  producing 
wool  may  have  increased  four-fold  in  this  long  period,  but 
many  living  men  have  seen  the  efficiency  of  labor  in  ren- 
dering wool  into  cloth  multiplied  fifty- fold. 

So  far,  then,  as  human  wants  can  be  met  by  the  ela- 
boration of  the  crude  materials  furnished  by  the  earth, 
satisfactions  (to  use  the  term  which  Bastiat's  writings  have 
brought  so  much  into  vogue)  may  be  multiplied  almost  in- 
definitely, not  in  spite  of,  but  partly  in  consequence  of, 
the  increase  of  population.  The  mechanic  of  to-day,  if  his 
wages  yield  something  over  the  demands  of  physical  main- 
tenance, may  purchase  with  the  balance  luxuries,  in  one 
of  a  thousand  forms,  which  two  hundred  years  ago  would 
have  tasked  the  means  of  the  wealthiest  banker.  The  wife 
of  a  common  laborer  may  wear  fabrics  which  would  once 
have  excited  the  admiration  of  a  court.  But,  after  all,  the 
great  bulk  of  the  consumption  of  the  working  classes  must 
be  in  coarse  forms  of  agricultural  produce  simply  pre- 
pared. It  matters  little  to  the  laborer  that  for  a  few  pence 
additional  he  may  have  his  cotton  wrought  into  exquisite 
designs  which  a  century  ago  would  have  required  months 
for  their  elaboration,  if  the  pence  he  has  are  not  enough 
to  buy  a  sufficient  weight  of  cotton  to  keep  him  and  his 
children  warm.  His  main  concern  is  with  the  cost  of 
grains  and  meats,  of  cotton  and  wool,  of  iron  and  wood  ; 
and  to  these,  in  their  simplest  forms,  the  law  of  diminish- 


100  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

ing  returns  applies  with  a  stringency  that  never  relaxes. 
"  If  the  fact  were  otherwise  .  .  .  the  science  of  political 
economy,  as  it  at  present  exists,  would  be  as  completely 
revolutionized  as  if  human  nature  itself  were  altered."1 

1  J.  E.  Cairnes,  Logical  Method,  etc.,  p.  36. 


CHAPTEK  VI. 

MALTHUSIANISM  IN  WAGES — THE  LAW  OF  POPULATION. 

To  the  situation  reached  at  the  close  of  the  last  chapter 
let  us  now  apply  the  law  of  population  known  by  the 
name  of  the  English  writer  who,  if  he  did  not  discover  the 
principles  underlying  it,  at  least  called  and  compelled  gen- 
eral attention  to  them. 

The  reader  will  have  noted  that  in  tracing  the  gradual 
increase  in  numbers  of  the  agricultural  community  whose 
experiences  formed  the  subject  of  the  last  chapter,  the  ad- 
ditional laborers  for  whom  room  and  work  were  found 
were  in  all  cases  called  in  from  abroad,  and  that  these 
laborers  were  taken  as  without  families,  or  at  least  that 
women  and  children  were  in  no  way  introduced  into  the 
narrative.  This  was  because  we  were  then  only  concerned 
with  the  industrial  capabilities  of  the  square-mile  tract 
under  consideration. 

But  now  let  us  change  the  supposition.  The  addi- 
tion of  laborers  shall  be  through  the  growth  to  maturity 
of  the  children  of  the  first  residents.  All  the  conditions 
will  remain  substantially  the  same,  through  the  whole 
course  of  settlement  and  improvement,  until  we  reach 
the  stage  of  "diminishing  returns."  Here  the  differ- 
ence between  the  two  modes  of  accession  begins,  and 
here  Malthusianism  applies  for  the  first  time.  In  the 
last  chapter  our  supposition  was  that  when  the  point 
was  reached  where  the  number  of  laborers  was  as  great 


102  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

as  could  be  employed  upon  the  land  to  advantage 
— that  is,  without  a  reduction  of  the  per-capita  crop — 
the  existing  body  of  laborers  would  refuse  to  receive 
further  accessions,  and  thus  stop  at  the  limit  of  the  highest 
individual  product.  But  how  will  it  be  if  the  accessions 
are  by  the  arrival  at  maturity  of  the  children  of  the  laborers 
themselves  ?  "Will  that  mode  of  increase  be  checked  so 
easily,  surely,  and,  one  might  say,  automatically,  when  the 
real  interests  of  the  laborer  demand  that  no  more  shall  be 
admitted  to  the  land  now  tilled  to  its  highest  per-capita 
capability  ?  Mr.  Maltlms  answers,  No  ;  and  his  great  repu- 
tation rests  on  his  searching  investigation  of  the  principles 
of  population,  and  his  conclusive  statement  that  population 
has  tended,  at  least  under  past  human  conditions,  to  disre- 
gard the  moral  inhibition  contained  in  the  fact  of  diminish- 
ing returns,  and  to  increase  thereafter  faster  than  subsist- 
ence, and  even  to  persist  in  that  increase,  while  food  be- 
came more  scant,  meagre,  and  unnourishing,  until  at  last 
the  one  sufficient  check  was  applied  by  disease  and  famine. 
Population,  said  Mr.  Mai  thus,  increases  in  a  geometrical 
ratio,  while  subsistence  increases  in  an  arithmetical  ratio 
only.  What,  now,  is  the  characteristic  of  geometrical  as 
contrasted  with  arithmetical  increase  ?  It  is  that  the 
increase  itself  increases.  Thus,  in  a  series  of  seven  terms, 
we  might  have : 

Arithmetical,  2,  4,  6,  8,  10,  12,  14. 
Geometrical.  2,  4,  8,  16,  32,  64,  128. 

Here,  in  the  former  series,  the  actual  difference  between 
the  sixth  and  seventh  terms  is  the  same  as  that  between  the 
first  and  second,  namely,  2.  In  the  latter  series,  the 
difference  between  the  first  and  second  terms  is  also  2, 
while  between  the  sixth  and  seventh  it  is  64.  This  tre- 
mendous leap  from  term  to  term  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
increase  between  the  first  and  second  terms  becomes  itself 
the  cause  of  increase  between  the  second  and  third  terms ; 
and  this  increase,  in  turn,  becomes  the  cause  of  corre- 


THE  LAW  OF  POPULATION.  103 

spending  increase  between  the  third  and  fourth,  and  so  on 
to  the  end.  Whereas  in  the  arithmetical  series  we  may 
say  that  the  entire  increase  comes  out  of  the  original  first 
term,  and  all  the  successive  increments  remain  themselves 
barren. 

Mankind,  like  every  other  species  of  animals,  said  Mr. 
Malthus,  tend  to  increase  in  a  geometrical  ratio.  Speaking 
broadly,  every  human  pair,  no  matter  in  what  term  of  the 
series  appearing,  has  the  same  capability  of  reproduction 
as  the  original  pair,  and  has  the  same  likelihood  of  an 
equally  numerous  offspring,  after  the  same  number  of  gen- 
erations, as  Adam  and  Eve  are  credited  with.  It  is  in  this 
fact  of  a  reproductive  capability  in  the  descendant  equal  to 
that  of  the  ancestor  that  Mr.  Malthus  found  the  possibili- 
ties of  perpetual  poverty,  misery,  and  vice  among  the  human 
race.  At  this  point,  however,  it  needs  to  be  observed  that 
the  mere  fact  of  children  being  born  to  eveiy  human  pair 
on  earth  does  not  of  itself  meet  the  conditions  of  Mr.  Mal- 
thus's  reasoning.  Mr.  Greg,  in  his  Social  Enigmas,  has 
written  as  if  Malthusianism  presented  the  issue  whether 
people  should  have  children  or  not.  But  it  is  plain — almost 
too  plain,  indeed,  to  be  formally  stated — that  every  human 
pair  might  have  one  child,  and  yet  the  race  become  extinct 
in  a  few  generations  ;  might  have  two  children,  yet  no  in- 
crease of  population  result,  the  children  only  supplying  the 
parents'  places  in  the  social  and  industrial  order  ;  nay,  as  a 
large  proportion  of  those  who  are  born  do,  and  seemingly 
must,  in  the  present  state  of  sanitary  and  medical  science, 
die  before  reaching  maturity,  and  as  many  who  survive  do, 
from  one  cause  or  another,  remain  single,  every  married 
pair  might  have  three  children,  and  yet  there  >e  no  in- 
crease. Surely  these  facts  dispose  of  Mr.  Greg's  sentimen- 
tal grievance. 

The  doctrine  of  Malthus,  then,  assumes  an  average 
number  of  children  to  a  family  sufficient,  after  allowance 
for  infant  mortality,  celibacy,  and  exceptional  sterility,  to 
yield  a  net  increase  in  each  generation.  As  matter  of  fact, 


104  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

Mr.  Malthus1  assumes  in  excess  of  four  children  to  a  family 
as  the  average  under  conditions  where  neither  "  vice,  misery, 
nor  moral  restraint"  appear  to  check  the  natural  progress  of 
population.  The  validity  of  the  theory  does  not,  however, 
depend  on  the  specific  ratio  taken.  Given  only  a  number 
of  children  sufficient  to  yield  a  net  increase,  however 
slight,  in  each  generation,  with  an  undiminished  reproduc- 
tive capability  in  each  married  pair,  we  have  the  condi- 
tions of  a  geometrical  progression.  And  the  capabilities  of 
a  geometrical  progression  when  persisted  in  are  simply 
tremendous.  "  The  elephant,"  says  Mr.  Darwin,  "  is 
reckoned  the  slowest  breeder  of  all  known  animals,  and  I 
have  taken  some  pains  to  estimate  its  probable  minimum 
rate  of  natural  increase.  It  will  be  safest  to  assume  that 
it  begins  breeding  when  thirty  years  old,  and  goes  on 
breeding  till  ninety  years  old,  bringing  forth  six  young  in 
the  interval,  and  surviving  till  one  hundred  years  old  ;  if 
this  be  so,  after  a  period  of  from  seven  hundred  and  forty 
to  seven  hundred  and  fifty  years  there  would  be  alive 
nearly  nineteen  million  elephants  descended  from  the  first 
pair.  .  .  .  Even  slow-breeding  man  has  doubled  in  twenty- 
five  years,  and  at  this  rate  in  a  few  thousand  years  there 
would  literally  not  be  standing-room  for  his  progeny."5 

But  how  would  it  be  meanwhile  with  subsistence  ?  In 
saying  that  this  tends  to  increase  in  an  arithmetical  ratio 
only,  Mr.  Malthus  did  not  deny  an  inherent  capability  in 
vegetable  life  to  reproduce  itself  far  more  rapidly  than  it  is 
given  to  most  species  of  animals  to  do.  "  Wheat,  we  know," 
says  Prof.  Senior,  "  is  an  annual,  and  its  average  power  of 
reproduction  perhaps  about  six  for  one  ;  on  that  supposi- 
tion, the  produce  of  a  single  acre  might  cover  the  globe  in 
fourteen  years.3 "  Here,  surely,  is  geometrical  and  geogra- 
phical progression  with  a  vengeance  !  Why,  then,  assert 
for  vegetable  life  a  power  of  arithmetical  progression  only  ? 


1  The  Principle  of  Population,  i.  474-6. 

3  The  Origin  of  Species,  chap.  iii.  8  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  30. 


THE  LAW  OF  SUBSISTENCE,  105 

The  justification  of  this  will  be  found  in  the  last  words  of 
the  extract  just  given :  the  globe  would  be  covered,  and 
that  in  fourteen  years,  by  the  increase  of  a  single  acre  of  this 
comparatively  unprolific  cereal.  There  are  weeds,  and  even 
useful  plants,  whose  rate  of  increase  would  allow  them  to 
overspread  the  earth  in  half  that  time.  Mr.  Malthus's  theory 
assumes  the  earth  generally  occupied  and  cultivated,  in  its 
fertile  parts  at  least.  From  this  point  on,  all  increase  of 
vegetable  food  must  be  made  against  an  increasing  resist- 
ance, and  hence  can  only  be  obtained  through  the  expen- 
diture of  constantly-increasing  force.  After  the  condi- 
tion of  "  diminishing  returns"  described  in  the  preceding 
chapter  has  been  reached,  every  addition  to  the  crop  is 
obtained  at  the  cost  of  more  than  a  proportional  amount 
of  labor.  Thus  the  share  of  each  laborer  becomes  smaller 
and  still  smaller,  as,  through  the  persistence8  of  the  sexual 
instincts,  population  continues  to  increase.  "  The  diminish- 
ing productiveness  of  the  land,  as  compared  with  the  un- 
diminished  power  of  human  fecundity,  forms  the  basis  of 
the  Malthusian  theory."3 


From  my  own  analysis  of  the  doctrine  of  Mr.  Malthus,  I 


1  "  Throughout  the  animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms  nature  has  scat- 
tered the  seeds  of  life  abroad  with  the  most  profuse  and  liberal  hand, 
but  has  been  comparatively  sparing  in  the  room  and  the  nourishment 
necessary  to  rear  them.  "—Malthus,  The  Principle  of  Population,  i.  3. 

"  L'accroisement  des  moyens  d'existence  et  I'accroisement  du  capital 
ont  necessairement  des  limites  dans  un  espace  de  temps  donne.  Au 
contraire,  I'accroisement  de  la  population  est  pour  ainsi  dire  illimite. 
....  Si  done,  entre  ces  deux  productions  extremement  inegales, 
la  prevoyance  humaine  ne  s'interpose,  une  calamite  est  imminente." 
— M.  Chevalier,  7eme  Discours,  d'Overture  du  cours  de  1'annee,  1840-7. 

*  "  The  same  power  that  doubles  the  population  of  Kentucky. 
Illinois,  and  New  South  Wales  every  five-and-twenty  years,  exists 
everywhere,  and  is  equally  energetic  in  England,  France,  and  Holland." 
— J.  R.  McCulloch,  Pol.  Econ.  226. 

8  Prof.  Rickards,  Population  and  Capital,  p.  127. 


106  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

should  say  he  reached  in  succession  three  results  :  first,  the 
power  of  population  to  increase  faster  than  subsistence ; 
secondly,  the  tendency  of  population  so  to  increase — that  is, 
he  proved  that  the  mere  fact  of  passing  into  the  stage  of  "  di- 
minishing returns"  in  production  has  of  itself  no  necessary 
effect  whatever  to  check  propagation ;  thirdly,  the  deter- 
mination, the  strong  and  urgent  disposition,  of  population 
so  to  increase,  due  to  the  power  and  persistence  of  the 
sexual  instincts,  under  the  force  of  which  human  reproduc- 
tion will  go  forward  in  spite  of  the  plain  warnings  of  pru- 
dence, in  spite  of  increasing  discomfort,  squalor,  and 
hunger.  "  Moral  restraint"  might,  Mr.  Malthus  admitted, 
intervene  to  stay  the  fatal  progress  ;  but  this  required  too 
much  virtue  to  be  reasonably  expected  of  large  masses  of 
people.  Hence  the  limit  to  population  must  be  looked  for 
mainly  in  "  vice"  (a  preventive  check  to  population)  or  in 
"  misery"  (a  positive  check).  Prostitution  might  enter  in 
disparagement  of  marriage  ;  foeticide  and  abortion  might 
enter  to  diminish  the  average  number  of  children  to  a 
marriage  ;  such  were  the  methods  of  vice  in  limiting  popu- 
lation by  diminishing  births.  On  the  other  hand,  misery — 
that  is,  privation  and  excessive  exertion — by  aggravating  in- 
fant mortality  and  shortening  the  duration  of  mature  life, 
has  been  found,  and  is  likely  through  an  indefinite  future 
to  be  found,  the  chief  agency  in  keeping  down  the  num- 
bers of  mankind. 

Of  this  last  result  it  may  be  said  that  it  was  a  not  very 
extravagant  generalization  of  the  experiences  of  most  of 
the  countries  of  Europe  to  which  Mr.  Malthus,  writing  be- 
fore the  French  Revolution  had  fully  wrought  its  mighty 
work,  could  look  to  ascertain  the  comparative  strength  of 
the  principle  of  increase  and  the  restraints  of  prudence. 
He  might — indeed  he  did — look  away  to  a  country  beyond 
the  ocean,  where  a  popular  tenure  of  the  soil,  popular  edu- 
cation, and  a  popular  control  of  government  might  be  ex- 
pected to  bring  out  the  virtues  of  self-respect  and  self-re- 
straint ;  but  here  it  chanced  that  the  political  and  the  indus- 


ANALYSIS  OF  MALTHTJSIANI8M.  107 

trial  interests  of  the  people  coincided  in  encouraging  the 
most  rapid  development  of  population. 

Such  being  the  three  successive  but  distinct  results 
which  make  up  Mr.  Malthus's  body  of  doctrine,  it  should 
be  noted  that  they  are  not  all  of  the  same  validity.  The 
first  result  comes  directly  out  of  facts  in  the  physical  con- 
ditions of  the  earth  and  of  man,  which  can  not  be  impugned. 
The  second,  for  all  that  is  known  of  human  physiology, 
would  seem  to  be  equally  indisputable.  Prof.  Senior  has, 
indeed,  in  terms,  while  admitting  the  power,  denied  the 
tendency ;  but  I  must  think  that  his  denial  should  be 
taken  as  extending  not  to  the  tendency,  but  to  what  I  have 
called  the  determination,  of  population  to  increase  unduly. 
It  seems  incredible  that  Prof.  Senior  should  have  intended 
to  question  that  population  tends  to  increase  faster  than 
subsistence,  so  long,  at  least,  as  subsistence  remains  ade- 
quate to  physical  well-being,  for  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  condition  of  diminishing  returns  may  begin  when 
\hvper-capita  product  is  still  ample  to  afford  a  liberal  sup- 
port to  all.  Now,  a  country  may  proceed  a  long  time  with 
diminishing  returns,  diminishing,  it  may  be,  very  slowly, 
before  squalor  and  hunger  become  the  necessary  concom- 
itants of  an  increase  of  population.  So  that,  considering 
a  people  on  the  verge  of  that  condition,  it  is  certainly  safe 
to  say  that  subsistence  can  not  thereafter  increase  as  fast  as 
before,  because  the  constitution  of  the  soil  forbids ;  while 
yet  population  may,  for  a  longer  or  a  shorter  time,  continue 
to  increase  as  fast  as  before,  since  the  reproductive  capa- 
bility1 is  undiminished  and  the  sexual  instinct  remains  as 
active  and  strong  as  ever.  Hence,  I  believe  Prof.  Senior 
V  must  have  meant  to  deny  this  tendency  only  in  the  degree 

1  Indeed,  the  reproductive  capability  might  even  be  increased  during 
the  first  stages  of  diminishing  returns.  This  would  doubtless  be  so  if 
the  previous  returns  to  labor  had  been  so  liberal  as  to  encourage  luxu- 
riousness  and  some  degree  of  effeminacy.  In  this  case  the  first  effects 
of  diminished  returns  might  be  to  induce  a  greater  physical  and  ner- 
vous vigor. 


108  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

of  force  and  persistency  which    Mr.  Maltlms  attributed 
to  it. 

It  is  then  against  Mr.  Malthus's  last  result,  namely,  the  de- 
termination, the  strong  and  urgent  disposition,  of  popula- 
tion to  increase  in  spite  of  reason  and  prudence,  and  in 
spite  of  privation  and  squalor,  that  all  valid  criticism  must 
be  directed.  Many  of  Mr.  Malthus's  opponents  have  con- 
sidered that  they  have  demolished  Malthusianism  when 
they  have  shown  to  their  own  satisfaction  that  the  im- 
pulse to  propagation  is  somewhat  less  strong,  or  that  the 
motives  and  physiological  tendencies  which  work  against 
increase  of  population  are  somewhat  stronger,  than  he  re- 
presented them  to  be.  Malthusianism,  however,  stands 
complete  and  inexpugnable  on  the  demonstration  of  the 
power  and  the  tendency  of  population  to  increase  faster 
than  subsistence.  The  gloomy  forebodings  of  the  amiable 
clergyman  who  promulgated  the  doctrine  are  not  at  all  of 
its  essence.  Malthusianism  would  survive  a  demonstra- 
tion, on  the  largest  scale,  of  the  power  of  prudence  and 
social  ambition  to  hold  the  impulses  to  propagation  firmly 
in  check. 


CHAPTEE    VII. 

NECESSARY     WAGES. 

THE  phrase  "necessary  wages"  makes  a  considerable 
figure  in  economical  literature.  By  it  is  intended  a  mini- 
num  below  which,  it  is  assumed,  wages  can  not  fall  without 
reducing  the  supply  of  labor  and  thus  inducing  an  opposite 
tendency,  namely,  to  a  rise  in  wages.1 

It  is  not  meant  that  the  employer  is  bound,  by  either 
equitable  or  economical  considerations,  to  pay  the  laborer, 
in  the  immediate  instance,  enough  to  support  life  in  him- 
self and  family.  The  employer  will,  in  general,  pay  only 
such  wages  as  the  anticipated  value  of  the  product  will 
allow  him  to  get  back  from  the  purchaser,  with  his  own 
proper  profits  thereon.  If,  in  a  peculiar  condition  of  in- 
dustry, he  consents  for  a  time  to  give  up  his  own  profits, 
or  even  to  produce  at  a  sacrifice,  it  is  with  reference  to  his 
own  interest  in  keeping  his  laboring  force,  or  his  custo- 
mers, together,  in  the  expectation  that  a  turn  in  affairs  will 


1  "  The  cost  of  purchasing  labor,  like  that  of  every  thing  else,  must 
be  paid  by  the  purchasers.  The  race  of  laborers  would  become  alto- 
gether extinct  unless  they  were  supplied  with  quantities  of  food  and 
other  articles  sufficient  for  their  support  and  that  of  their  families. 
This  is  the  lowest  limit  to  which  the  rate  of  wages  can  be  permanent- 
ly reduced,  and  for  this  reason  it  has  been  called  the  natural  or  neces- 
sary rate  of  wages." — J.  B.  McCulloch,  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  385v 


110  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

enable  him  to  make  himself  good  for  the  temporary  loss. 
If  he  pays  more  than  is  consistent  with  this  object,  or  if 
he  pays  any  thing  from  any  other  view  than  his  own  in- 
terest, what  he  thus  pays  is  not  wages,  but  alms  disguised 
as  wages. 

Such  instances  of  temporary  sacrifice  are,  however,  ex- 
ceptional. In  the  vast  majority  of  cases  the  wages  which 
employers  pay  their  workmen  are  governed  by  the  price 
at  which  they  may  fairly  expect  to  sell  the  product ;  and 
this,  whether  the  workmen  and  their  families  can  live 
thereon  or  not.  If  now,  in  any  country,  at  any  time, 
laborers,  from  any  cause,  become  in  excess  of  the  demand, 
necessaiy  wages  in  that  instance  will  not  include  a  suffici- 
ency of  food  and  clothing  for  all  these  laborers,  but  only 
for  those  who  are  wanted. 

JSTor  by  necessary  wages  is  it  meant  that  workmen  will 
not  accept  wages  which  are  below  the  standard  of  subsist- 
ence. It  is  when  men  are  receiving  wages  which  give 
them  a  margin  for  the  comforts  of  life,  and  perhaps  some- 
thing for  luxury,  that  they  say,  sometimes  in  very  wanton- 
ness, "  If  we  can  not  have  such  and  such  wages,  we  will 
not  work,"  and  perchance  refuse  offers  which  are  as  liberal 
as  their  employers  can  make.  But  when  wages  approach 
the  dread  line  where  they  cease  to  furnish  a  sufficiency  of 
the  coarsest  food,  laboring  men  do  not  talk  so.  In  coun- 
tries where  there  is  no  poor  law,  and  where  the  claim  to 
support  is  not  admitted  by  the  state,  it  is  a  thing  unknown 
that  a  workman  refuses  wages  because  they  will  not  keep 
himself  and  family  alive.  He  takes  them  for  what  they 
are  worth,  applies  them  as  far  as  they  will  go,  and  works 
on,  perhaps  with  failing  strength,  eager  to  secure  the  per- 
haps failing  employment.  If  it  is  in  the  city,  and  the  sight 
of  luxury  maddens  the  crowd  of  laborers  giddy  with  fast- 
ing, the  dreadful  cry  of  "  Bread  or  blood  "  may  be  raised, 
and  the  last  effort  of  strength  be  given  to  pillage  and  de- 
struction. But  the  single  laborer,  acting  out  his  own  im- 


NECESSARY  WAGES.  Ill 

pulses,  takes  the  wages  that  are  offered  him  never  so  surely 
as  when  those  wages  are  close  down  upon  the  famine  line. 
If  the  least  sum  on  which  a  man  with  a  wife  and  five 
children  can  subsist,  be  seven  shillings  a  week,  and  yet  in 
hard  times  he  is  offered  but  six  shillings  for  his  labor,  this 
does  not  mean  that  one  victim  is  to  be  selected  from  the  se- 
ven and  set  apart  to  starve,  while  the  rest  are  fed.  It  means 
that  all  will  try  to  live  on  the  scantier  supply.  The  famine 
line  is  not  a  line  which  it  is  easy  to  trace.  Laboring  men 
and  women  can  live  for  single  days  on  what  they  could  not 
live  upon  during  an  entire  week  ;  they  can  live  for  a  single 
week  on  what  they  could  not  live  upon  every  week  of  the 
month  ;  they  can  even  live  for  months  on  what  they  could 
not  live  upon  an  entire  year.  They  can  live  along  for 
years  on  a  half  of  what  would  be  necessary  to  keep  them 
in  robust  health  and  with  strength  to  labor  efficiently. 
With  the  aged  and  the  young  the  capacity  of  enduring 
privation  is  almost  indefinitely  less.  Yet  even  when  each 
succumbs  in  his  turn,  the  nursing  child  and  the  young  man 
in  his  strength,  the  chances  are  that  it  is  to  some  distinct 
form  of  disease,  for  which  privation  has  prepared  the  way. 
Thus  in  Ireland,  when  the  annual  number  of  deaths  rose 
from  Y7,Y54,  the  average  of  the  three  preceding  years,  to 
122,889  in  1846,  and  249,335  in  1847,  it  was  from  fever,  and 
not  from  literal  starvation,  that  the  great  mass  of  victims 
died.1  So  in  India,  in  the  famine  of  18Y3-4,  the  number 
of  deaths  from  starvation  reported  from  districts  embrac- 
ing millions  of  inhabitants  was  in  some  instances  but  three, 
five,  or  ten,  while  yet  the  population  had  been  greatly  re- 
duced by  an  extraordinary  mortality  from  the  recognized 
forms  of  ordinary  disease.  Dr.  Hunter,  in  his  Famine 

1  The  number  of  deaths  actually  attributed,  on  inquest,  to  starva- 
tion, and  so  reported  in  the  famous  Irish  census  of  1851,  was  2( 
1846,  6058  in  1847,  and  9395  during  the  two  years  following.  (Report^ 
Part  V.,  vol.  i.,p.  253.) 


113  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

Aspects  of  India,  lias  strikingly  drawn  the  lamentable 
picture  of  a  people  entering  the  famine  state. 

"  At  the  outset  of  a  famine  the  people  fall  back  upon 
roots  and  various  sorts  of  inferior  green  food.  The  children 
and  the  weaker  members  of  the  family  die,  and  those  who 
survive  eke  out  a  very  insufficient  quantity  of  rice  by  roots 
and  wild  plants.  The  wages  which  would  not  suffice  to 
feed  an  average  family  of  four  are  sufficient  for  the  two 
or  three  members  who  survive.  The  rural  population 
enters  a  famine  as  a  frigate  goes  into  battle,  cleared  of  all 
useless  gear  and  inefficient  members" 

"We  have  seen  that  by  "  necessary  wages"  is  not  meant  that 
masters  will  not  offer,  or  workmen  receive,  in  the  immedi- 
ate instance,  wages  which  are  greatly  and  increasingly  inade- 
quate to  the  support  of  life.  But  more  than  this,  it  is  not  even 
meant  that  any  wages  at  all  are  necessary  unconditionally. 
The  employing  class  may,  from  causes  affecting  the  indus- 
try of  a  community  or  a  country,  itself  slowly  disappear. 
Many  regions  once  most  fair  and  flourishing  have,  as  we 
know,  been  stricken  with  a  paralysis  of  industry,  leaving 
no  small  part  of  their  inhabitants  occupationless.  In  such 
a  case  not  only  can  no  particular  scale  of  wages  be  said  to 
be  necessary,  but  no  wages  at  all  will  be  necessary ;  the 
population  thus  rendered  surplus  must  remove  if  it  can  to 
new  seats,  or  remaining,  as  is  most  likely,  must  pass  rapidly 
away  by  the  excess  of  deaths  over  births,  induced  by  hardship 
and  privation.  Hence,  if  we  will  say  that  wages  must  be 
high  enough  to  maintain  the  laboring  class  in  condition  to 
labor,  and  to  keep  their  numbers  good,  we  should  bear  in 
mind  the  condition  on  which  this  alone  is  true,  namely,  that 
the  employing  class  is  itself  kept  good. 

The  whole  significance  of  the  term  necessary  wages  is 
that,  in  order  to  the  supply  of  labor  being  maintained, 
wages  must  be  paid  which  will  not  only  enable  the  labor- 
ing class  to  subsist  according  to  the  standard  of  comfort 
and  decency,  or  discomfort  and  indecency  it  may  be,  which 


NECESSARY  WAGES.  113 

they  set  up  for  themselves  as  that  below  which  they  will 
not  go,  but  will  also  dispose  them  to  propagate1  suffi- 
ciently to  make  up  the  inevitable,  incessant  loss  of  labor 
from  death  or  disability.  If  the  standard  of  living  re- 
ferred to  above  varies  among  several  communities  or  coun- 
tries, then  the  term  "  necessary  wages"  must  be  interpreted 
in  each  community  or  country  according  to  the  habitual 
standard  there  maintained. 

It  is,  then,  because  something  besides  vice  and  misery 
do,  in  a  degree,  limit  the  increase  of  population,  that  the 
question  of  necessary  wages  becomes  more  than  the  ques- 
tion of  the  amount  of  the  barest,  baldest  subsistence  which 
will  keep  men  alive  and  in  condition  for  labor.  And  as,  ik 
fact,  the  standard  of  living  varies  with  each  community  or 
country,  the  laboring  population  in  no  two  making  pre- 
cisely the  same  requirements  as  the  condition  precedent  to 
their  keeping  their  numbers  good,  the  term  necessary 
wages  must  be  understood  in  each  country  and  separate 
community  according  to  the  habitual  standard  there  main- 
tained. 

JSTecessary  wages,  as  thus  defined,  may  be  very  low.  It 
is  commonly  said  that  the  lowest  point  which  can  be 
reached  is  that  at  which  enough  food  (taking  that  as  the 
type  of  expenditure),  of  the  coarsest  and  meanest  kind,  can 


1  It  will  be  seen  that  the  wages  of  the  laborer  thus  made  necessary- 
must  include  not  only  his  own  subsistence  but  that  of  those  persons, 
not  themselves  productive  laborers,  whose  maintenance  is  a  means  to 
the  supply  of  labor  in  the  immediate  future.  Thus  the  wages  of  the 
bread-winners  must  provide  food  and  care  for  women  in  the  weakness 
of  childbearing,  and  for  children  in  the  years  of  infancy.  Whether 
they  shall  also  provide  food  and  care  for  the  aged  in  their  decrepi- 
tude, and  for  the  crippled  and  infirm,  is  determined  by  other  conside- 
rations, to  be  noted  further  on.  These,  at  least,  are  not  essential  to  the 
supply  of  labor ;  and  in  barbarous  countries  not  a  few,  the  horrid  cus- 
tom of  making  away  with  those  who  are  regarded  as  a  hopeless  burden 
shows  that  the  support  of  such  ia  not  an  element  of  necessary  wages 
among  those  peoples. 


114  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

be  provided  to  sustain  life  and  the  ability  to  labor.  But 
in  truth  necessary  wages  may  be  a  great  deal  lower  than 
that.  It  is  found  that,  throughout  countries  comprising  a 
largo  part  of  the  human  race,  tlio  wages  given  and  taken 
not  only  provide  subsistence  so  scanty  and  so  little  nour- 
ishing that  the  population  become  stunted  and  more  or 
less  deformed  and  ineffective  in  labor  ;  but  that  even  so,  a 
large  part  of  all  who  are  born  die  in  infancy  and  early 
childhood  from  the  effects  of  privation.  The  horrible  in- 
fant mortality  of  many  districts  is  not  accounted  for  solely 
by  neglect  of  sanitary  precautions,  but  is  also  largely  due 
to  the  low  diet  of  mothers  and  children. 

But  necessary  wages  may  not  only  be  so  low  as  to  require 
the  death,  under  four  years  of  age,  of  one  half  the  persons 
born  into  the  community :  they  may  be  so  low  as  to  re- 
quire the  phrase  "  to  sustain  life"  to  be  very  much  quali- 
fied in  respect  to  those  who  survive  the  period  of  childhood 
and  attain  the  capacity  to  labor.  In  most  countries,  if  we 
take  civilized  and  semi-civilized  together,  no  scale  of  wages 
is  so  necessary  but  that  population  will,  in  spite  of  an  infant 
mortality  aggravated  almost  to  the  proportions  of  a  gen- 
eral massacre,  increase  to  the  point  of  docking  one  quarter, 
one  third,  or  one  half  from  the  natural  term  of  the  industrial 
force,  for  all  those  who  come  to  man's  estate.  By  this  I 
mean  that,  if  adequate  and  wholesome  food,  with  simply 
decent  and  healthful  conditions  of  life,  would,  with  no 
regeneration  of  society  or  perfection  of  individual  man- 
hood, or  even  so  much  as  the  sanitary  reformation  of  cities 
and  dwellings,  allow  to  persons  attaining  the  age  of  20 
years  a  further  term,  upon  the  average,  of  40  years,  popu- 
lation is  still  capable  of  increasing,  in  spite  of  the  principle 
of  necessary  wages,  until  food,  clothing,  and  firing  are  so 
reduced,  and  dwellings  become  so  crowded,  that,  instead 
of  40  years,  an  average  term  no  longer  than  30,  or  even 
20  years,  is  allowed  to  those  who  attain  manhood.  Surely 
the  phrase  to  "  sustain  life"  needs  to  be  qualified  in  such 


THE  STANDARD  OF  LIVING.  115 

cases,  where  life  is,  in  fact,  from  want  of  food  and  ordinary 
comforts,  sustained  through  but  a  fraction  of  its  other- 
wise natural  term. 

We  have  thus  reduced  the  scope  of  the  principle  of 
necessary  wages  by  showing,  first,  that  no  wages  at  all  are 
necessary  unless  some  one  sees  it  for  his  own  interest  to 
employ  labor,  and,  secondly,  that  when  wages  are  paid,  it 
is  not  necessary  that  they  should  be  sufficient  to  support 
more  than  two  thirds  or  one  half  of  the  persons  bom  into 
the  world,  or,  in  the  case  of  those  actually  surviving  to  the 
age  of  labor,  to  "  sustain  life"  through  more  than  one  half 
or  three  fourths  of  the  natural  term  of  labor. 

But  there  is  nevertheless  a  truth  in  the  doctrine  of 
necessary  wages.  There  is  a  point  below  which  if,  in  any 
community,  wages  go,  the  supply  of  labor  will  not  be  kept 
up ;  and  hence  if  employers  will  have  labor,  they  must 
pay  for  it  up  to  this  point. 

But  it  is  not  in  every  community,  it  is  not  in  most  com- 
munities, perhaps  it  is  not  in  any  community,  so  long  as 
employment  is  offered  at  all,  that  the  minimum  of  wages 
is  fixed  by  the  barest  physical  conditions  of  keeping  up  the 
supply  of  labor.  Powerful  as  is  the  sexual  passion,1  it  has 
not  unresisted  sway.  Somewhere  above  the  point  we  have 
indicated — it  may  be  far  above,  it  may  be  but  a  little  way 
above  this — men  will  cease  bringing  children  into  the  world. 
They  may — in  many  countries  they  do — increase  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  involve  the  frightful  infant  mortality  we  have 
noticed,  and  to  reduce  the  term  of  adult  life  to  very  narrow 
limits.  But  they  will  not  sink  to  prove  the  last  possibilities 
of  the  case  ;  they  stop  short  of  the  bald,  brutal  demonstra- 
tion of  the  inability  to  keep  up  the  supply  of  labor  upon 
scantier  food,  fire,  and  raiment ;  and  stopping  here,  they  do 

1 "  Happily  there  is  but  one  passion  of  the  same  nature ;  for  if  there 
were  two  there  would  not  be  a  single  man  left  in  the  universe  who 
would  be  able  to  follow  the  truth."— An  Eastern  writer. 


116  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

in  fact  give  themselves  some  little  margin  of  living.  The 
Chinaman  buys  his  precious  drug  ;  the  East  Indian  gives 
months  of  every  year  to  the  service  of  his  goggle-eyed  di- 
vinity. 

In  Persia,  Turkey,  and  other  States  of  the  East  impera- 
tive custom  requires  the  most  lavish  outlay  in  the  period 
immediately  before  marriage,  for  which  preparation  or 
reparation  has  to  be  made  during  preceding  or  succeeding 
years  of  labor.  "  A  man,"  writes  Mr.  Consul  Taylor  from 
Koordistan,1  "  one  would  not  suppose  to  possess  a  penny, 
not  unfrequently  spends  £30,  raised  on  loan  from  his  em- 
ployer, that  is  dissipated  during  the  seven  days  of  riotous 
living  preceding  the  ceremony." 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  actual  as  distinguished  from 
the  theoretical  minimum ;  in  other  words,  the  "  neces- 
sary wages,"  the  wages  that  must  be  paid  to  keep  the 
supply  of  labor  good,  if,  indeed,  it  is  to  be  kept  good ; 
for  that,  wre  have  seen,  is  not  a  necessity.  All  the 
way  up  from  this  low  plane,  through  the  scale  of  na- 
tions, we  find  points  established  which  mark  the  mini- 
mum of  wages  for  one  community  or  another,  those 
wages,  namely,  on  which  that  community  will  consent  to 
keep  its  numbers  good.  Such  wages  thus  become  the 
necessary  wages  for  that  community,  necessary  only  in  the 
sense  that  the  habits  of  living  among  the  people  will  not 
permit  reproduction  sufficient  to  repair  the  natural  waste 
of  labor,  on  any  lower  terms,  with  any  thing  less  of  the 
"  necessaries,  comforts,  and  luxuries"  of  life. 

JTow,  since  among  most  peoples  food  is  the  main  object2 


1  Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes,  1871,  p.  800,  cf. 
721.  In  Koordistan  the  annual  earnings  of  the  artisan  appear  to  range 
from  £12  to  £18. 

a  The  eminent  statistician,  Dr.  Engel,  of  Berlin,  has  given  the  fol- 
lowing comparative  statement  as  showing  the  average  relative  expen- 
diture in  Prussia  of  families  of  three  classes,  ranging  from  those  of 
well-to-do  artisans  to  those  of  persons  in  easy  circumstances : 


THE  STANDARD  OF  LIVING. 


117 


upon  which  wages  are  expended,  economists  have  been 
very  much  in  the  way  of  grading  the  "  necessary  wages"  of 
nations  according  to  their  habits  respecting  food,  the  princi- 


ITEMS  or  EXPENDITURE. 

PERCENTAGE  OP  THE  EXPENDITURE  OP  THE 
FAMILY  op 

1. 
A  working 
man,  with  in- 
come of  $225  to 
$300  a  year. 

2. 

A  man  of  the 

intermediate 
class,    with  in- 
come of  $450  to 
$600  a  year. 

3. 

A  person  in 
easy  circum- 
stances, within- 
come  of  $7oO 
to  $1125  a  year. 

1.  Food  

Per  cent. 
62 
16 
12 
5 

Per  cent. 
55 
18 
12 
5 

Per  cent. 
50 
18 
12 
5 

2    Clothing      

4.  Firinwand  Lightino- 

5.  Education,  Worship,  etc... 
C.  Legal  protection  

95 

2 
1 
1 
1 

90 

3.5 
2 
2 
1.5 

85 

5.5 
3 
3 
3.5 

7.  Care  of  health  

8.  Comfort  and  Recreation.  .  . 

100 

100 

100 

From  this  table  Dr.  Engel  deduces  the  following  proposition : 
While  the  proportion  of  the  total  outlay  upon  food  increases  as  the 
family  becomes  poorer,  the  percentage  of  outlay  for  clothing  is  ap- 
proximately, and  that  for  lodging  is  invariably,  the  same  in  the  three 
classes  taken  for  consideration.  Dr.  Engel  seems  disposed  to  regard 
this  very  much  as  a  law  of  expenditure.  I  am  disposed  to  believe, 
however,  that  the  apparent  conformity  has  been  reached  by  merging 
iirban  and  rural  communities  which  if  considered  separately  would 
show  very  wide  differences  of  expenditure  on  the  several  objects  indi- 
cated ;  and,  secondly,  that  the  extension  of  the  inquiry  to  other  lati- 
tudes and  other  social  conditions  would  develop  great  diversity  in 
these  respects.  The  Baron  Riesbeck  in  his  Travels  in  Germany  (Pink- 
erton,  vi.  147, 173),  in  1780,  notes  the  very  marked  differences  existing 
between  Southern  and  Northern  Germany  as  to  the  scale  of  expendi- 
ture on  dress.  The  lower  orders  among  the  Turks  probably  expend 
more  of  their  earnings  relatively  upon  dress  than  the  higher  classes. 
The  same  may  probably  be  assumed  respecting  the  ordinary  Danish 
workman,  who  insists  on  passing  himself  off  as  a  gentleman  on  Sun- 
days. Again,  the  scale  of  expenditure  on  lodging  varies  greatly  ac- 
cording to  social  conditions.  In  England,  Mr.  Clifford  says,  "  the  agri- 
cultural laborer  seldom  pays,  even  for  a  good  cottage,  more  than  -ft  of 
his  income,  and  more  commonly  -jV.  The  town  laborer  receiving  18  or  20 


113  1IIE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

pal  article  in  the  diet  of  each  being  taken  as  indicating 
the  wages  which  must  there  be  paid  to  keep  the  supply  of 
labor  good.  Thus  it  is  said  the  Chinese  will  breed  up  to 
the  point  where  a  sufficiency  of  food  of  the  meanest  kind, 
even  including  much  of  what  we  call  vermin,  can  be 
obtained  to  rear  a  constantly-increasing  number  of  laborers 
of  small  stature  and  low  vitality.  The  East  Indians,  again, 
are  satisfied  with  rice  ;'  and  population  in  that  country, 
accordingly,  will  increase  on  that  diet,  even  in  the  face  of 
the  certainty  of  a  famine  on  an  average  once  in  four  or  five 
years.3  The  Irish,  again,  are  satisfied  with  a  potato  diet,3 
and  will  increase  up  to  the  limits  of  subsistence  on  that 
food,4  though  at  the  constantly-imminent  risk  of  a  scarcity 
from  the  failure  of  that  most  uncertain  crop.  The  Scotch, 


shillings  weekly  will  certainly  not  pay  less  than  £  ;  the  artisan  receiv- 
ing 30,  35  shillings  or  £2  will  pay  £  and,  including  rates  and  taxes, 
probably  £. — Agricultural  Lock-out  of  1874,  p.  246. 

In  France,  Lord  Brabazon  reports  :  "  Whilst  at  about  the  same  pe- 
riod town  workmen  were  earning  wages  53.32  per  cent  higher  than 
agricultural  laborers,  these  latter  were  paying  40.45  per  cent  less 
rent." — Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes,  1872,  p.  49. 

The  well-known  passion  of  the  Netherlander  for  having  a  whole 
house,  however  small,  to  himself,  must,  I  think,  result  in  a  larger  pro- 
portional expenditure  in  this  direction  by  common  laborers  than  by 
the  higher  classes.  I  note  also  that  Dr.  Engel's  computations  do  not 
agree  very  well  with  those  given  by  Mr.  Scott  respecting  the  expendi- 
tures of  families  in  Wurtemburg.  (Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  In- 
dustrial Classes,  1872,  pp.  196, 197,  205.) 

1  Mr.  Brassey  says  of  the  Coolie  laborers  employed  on  the  railways 
in  India  :  "  Their  food  consists  of  two  pounds  of  rice  a  day,  mixed  with 
a  little  curry  ;  and  the  cost  of  living  on  this,  their  usual  diet,  is  only  Is. 
a  week." — Work  and  Wages,  p.  88. 

2  "  No  fewer  than  four  great  scarcities,  amounting  almost  to  famines," 
since  the  mutiny,  namely,  1861-2, 1865-6, 1868-9, 1873-4.— The  Duke  of 
Argyle,  quoted  by  London  Economist,  May  9,  1874. 

3  "  A  laborer  in  Ireland  will  live  and  bring  up  a  family  on  potatoes  ; 
a  laborer  in  England  will  see  the  world  unpeopled  first." — General  T. 
Perronet  Thompson. 

*  "  Three  times  the  number  of  persons  can  be  fed  on  an  acre  of  po- 
tatoes who  can  be  maintained  on  an  acre  of  wheat  in  ordinary  Bea- 
cons."— Alison's  History  of  Europe,  1815-51,  xviii.,  p.  11. 


FOOD  HABITS.  lift 

again,  pitch  their  minimum  of  wages  at  an  oaten  diet ; 
the  Germans,  at  a  diet  of  black  bread  ;  while  the  English 
insist,  at  the  very  lowest,  upon  wheaten  bread,  though  un- 
fortunately not  so  rigidly  and  persistently  but  that  a  con- 
siderable unnecessary  mortality  at  the  extremes  of  life,  and 
a  lowering  of  the  vital  force  among  large  portions  of  the 
actual  workers,  take  place.1 

It  will  be  seen  that,  according  to  this  doctrine,  the  neces- 
sary wages  of  every  country  are  fixed  by  the  habits  of  liv- 
ing among  the  people,  and  that  at  any  given  time  there 
is  a  point  below  which  wages  can  not  go  without  diminish- 
ing the  supply  of  labor.  This  point  may  change  from  one 
period  to  another.  A  people  broken  down  by  industrial 
misfortune  or  crowded  by  too  rapid  propagation  may 
temporarily  be  driven  to  a  lower  and  meaner  diet ;  and  in- 
stead of  resenting  this  by  withholding  their  increase,  and 
thereby  opening  the  way,  or  at  least  holding  the  way  open, 
to  a  return  to  better  times  and  circumstances,  may  accept 
the  degradation  to  which  they  are  thus  violently  brought ; 
may  lay  aside  that  self-respect  and  self-control  which  had 
hitherto  kept  them  from  sinking  in  the  social  scale,  and 
consent  to  bring  children  into  the  world  to  share  their  own 
miserable  lot.  Thus,  in  a  single  generation,  a  new  scale 
of  wages  may  be  determined,  and  population  adjust  itself 
accordingly.  Instances  of  such  lowering  of  the  necessary 
wages  of  a  people  are  unfortunately  not  uncommon. 


1  Prof.  Cairnes  makes  a  remark  in  his  Logical  Method  of  Pol.  Econ. 
which  is  liable  to  be  misunderstood.  He  says :  "  It  is  not  asserted 
that  population  in  fact  increases  faster  than  subsistence  ;  this  would, 
of  course,  be  physically  impossible."  In  one  sense  of  the  word  in- 
crease, that,  namely,  which  the  vital  statisticians  intend  by  the  phrase 
"  effective  increase,"  Prof.  Cairnes'8  remark  is  unexceptionable  ;  but 
there  is  nothing  to  prevent  persons  from  being  born  into  the  world  in 
large  numbers,  for  whom  there  is  not  food  enough  to  keep  them  alive, 
and  who  must  consequently  die  prematurely.  Most  people  would  say 
that  in  such  cases  "  population  in  fact  increases  faster  than  subsist- 
ence." Population,  of  course,  can  not  increase  and  remain  beyond  the 
limits  of  subsistence. 


120  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  people  accustomed  to  a  low  and 
mean  diet,  and  to  circumstances  of  filth  and  squalor,  may, 
under  impulses  moral  or  economical,  which  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  recite,  raise  themselves  to  a  new  standard  of  living,1 
involving  a  new  scale  of  wages,  which  thereafter  become 
necessary  to  them,  and  which  determine  population 
accordingly. 

Such  a  change,  involving  the  substitution  of  the  best 
wheaten  bread  for  that  of  an  inferior  quality,2  passed  upon 
the  masses  of  the  English  people  between  1715  and  1765. 
Food  wages  rose,  yet,  as  population  did  not  increase  corre- 
spondingly in  consequence,  there  was  a  "  decided  elevation 
in  the  standard  of  their  comforts  and  conveniences."  Such 
a  change  has,  by  the  testimony  of  observers  who  can  not  be 
doubted,  been  passing  over  Ireland  since  1850 ;  and  the 
temporary  relief  from  excessive  population  afforded  by 
famine  and  forced  emigration  has,  under  the  impulse  of 
that  terrific  suffering,  been  taken  advantage  of  to  reach  a 
somewhat  higher  standard  of  living.3  A  similar  change, 
for  which  an  easy  opportunity  is  offered  in  the  rapid  in- 
crease of  production,  through  the  discovery  of  new  re- 
sources in  nature,  and  new  arts  and  appliances  in  industry, 
is,  I  am  fain  to  believe,  passing  upon  not  a  few  of  the  peo- 
ple of  Europe  who  are  taking  advantage  of  the  liberality  of 
art  and  nature,  not  to  increase  their  numbers  to  the  limit  of 
their  former  modes  of  life,  but  to  snatch  something,  at 
least,  as  a  store  for  the  future,  and  something  for  greater 
decency  and  comfort  in  the  present. 


1  "  The  habits  of  the  English  and  Scotch  laborers  of  the  present  day 
are  as  widely  different  from  those  of  their  ancestors  in  the  reigns  of 
Elizabeth,  James  I.,  and  Charles  I.  as  they  now  are  from  the  habits 
of  the  laborers  of  France  and  Spain." — J.  R.  McCulloch,  Pol.  Econ.,  p. 
392. 

8  Malthus,  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  229. 

8  Note,  for  instance,  the  very  general  introduction  of  cornmeal  in 
place,  in  part,  of  the  potato.  (See  Mr.  Purdy's  paper  in  the  Statistical 
Journal,  xxv.  459-00.) 


CHEAP  FOOD.  121 

It  is  in  this  view  of  the  relation  of  food  to  the  increase  of 
population,  that  economists  have  very  generally  been  agreed 
in  pronouncing  cheap  food  a  source  of  much  evil  to  any 
people  that  adopts  it.  This  doctrine  can  not  be  better  stated 
than  in  the  language  of  Prof.  Rogers  : 

"  A  community  which  subsists  habitually  on  dear  food 
is  in  a  position  of  peculiar  advantage  when  compared  with 
another  which  lives  on  cheap  food;  one,  for  instance, 
which  lives  on  wheat  as  contrasted  with  another  which 
lives  on  rice  or  potatoes  ;  and  this  quite  apart  from  the  pru- 
dence or  incautiousness  of  the  people.  Two  instances  will 
illustrate  this  rule.  The  Irish  famine  of  1846  was  due  to 
the  sudden  disease  which  affected  the  potato.  It  was 
equally  severe  in  the  northern  parts  of  Scotland,  and  par- 
ticularly in  the  Western  Highlands ;  its  effects,  as  we  all 
know,  were  terrible  ;  but  the  same  disease  affected  the  same 
plant  in  England.  That,  however,  which  was  distress  to  the 
English  was  death  to  the  Irish  and  the  Highlanders  ;  they 
had  nothing  else  to  resort  to,1  they  subsisted  on  the  cheap- 
est food.  Now,  were  such  a  calamity  as  the  potato-dis- 
ease to  attack  wheat  in  England,  formidable  as  the  conse- 
quences would  be,  they  would  not  be  destructive."2 

Now,  I  dare  say  Prof.  Rogers  would  be  very  slow  to  ap- 


1  "  When  the  standard  of  natural  or  necessary  wages  is  high — 
when  wheat  aud  beef,  for  example,  form  the  principal  part  of  the  food 
of  the  laborer,  and  porter  and  beer  the  principal  part  of  his  drink,  he 
can  bear  to  retrench  in  a  period  of  scarcity.  Such  a  man  has  room  to 
fall ;  he  caxi  resort  to  cheaper  sorts  of  food — to  barley,  oats,  rice,  and 
potatoes.  But  he  who  is  habitually  fed  on  the  cheapest  food  has 
nothing  to  resort  to  when  deprived  of  it.  Laborers  placed  in  this  situ- 
ation are  absolutely  cut  off  from  every  resource.  You  may  take  from 
an  Englishman,  but  you  can  not  take  from  an  Irishman.  The  latter  is 
already  so  low  he  can  fall  no  lower ;  he  is  placed  on  the  very  verge  of 
existence  ;  his  wages,  being  regulated  by  the  price  of  potatoes,  will 
not  buy  wheat,  or  barley,  or  oats  ;  and  whenever,  therefore,  the  sup- 
ply of  potatoes  fails,  it  is  next  to  impossible  that  he  should  escape 
falling  a  sacrifice  to  famine."— J.  E.  McCulloch,  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  396. 

"Pol.  Econ.,  pp.  70,71. 


122  THE  WAGES  QUESTION: 

prove  the  theory  of  the  British  Legislature  in  seeking,  as  late 
as  1774,  to  discourage  the  use  of  cotton  goods,  and  to  restrict 
the  people  to  the  costlier  fabrics  of  linen,  silk,  and  wool. 
Yet  why  should  not  dear  clothing  be  desired  as  an  ele- 
ment in  high  necessary  wages,  as  much  as  dear  food  ?  If 
necessaiy  wages,  called  100,  be  made  up  of  dear  food,  90, 
and  cheap  clothing,  10,  is  it  not  the  same,  in  the  result,  as  if 
the  constituents  were  cheap  food,  80,  and  dear  clothing,  20  ? 
And,  if  famine  comes,  does  not  the  possibility  of  going 
down  from  dear  clothing  to  cheap  clothing,  from  woollen,1 
say,  to  cotton,  or  from  flax2  to  cotton,  afford  a  margin,  just 
as  truly  as  the  substitution  of  cheap  for  dear  food  ?  If  so, 
how  does  this  laudation  of  dear  food  for  the  people  con- 
sist with  the  laudation  of  the  machinery  which  cheapens  the 
clothing  of  the  people  ?  Yet  economists  who  will  not 
admit  the  wholesale  supersedure  of  human  labor  by  cot- 
ton and  woollen  machinery  in  the  early  part  of  this 
century,  and  the  consequent  throwing  out  of  employment 
of  vast  numbers  of  men  and  women  to  sink  into  pauper- 
ism and  squalor,  to  be  even  a  qualification  of  the  advan- 
tages of  introducing  machinery  to  cheapen  clothing,  are 
unhesitating  in  their  denunciation  of  cheap  food. 


It  appears  to  me  that  cheap  food,  just  like  cheap  clothing, 
ought  to  be,  and  but  for  the  folly  and  wickedness  of  men 
would  be,  a  blessing  to  the  race ;  that,  to  any  free,  in- 
dustrious, and  self-respecting  people,  to-day,  every  cheap- 


1  One  pound  of  wool  manufactured  into  flannel  costs  3s.  Id.  ;  1  Ib.  flax 
into  shirting,  2s.   4d.;  1  Ib.    cotton  into  shirting,  1*.     The  materials 
for  a  full  dress  of  outer  garments  if  composed  of  wool  would  not  cost 
less  than  thirty  shillings  ;  while  the  game  quantity  of  material  of  cot- 
ton, and  of  more  durable  quality,  costs  only  Is.  Gd.  to  105.     (Mr.  Ash- 
worth,  quoted  by  Prof.  Levi,  Statistical  Journal,  xxvi.  36.) 

2  One  hundred  pounds  of  flax  will  produce  about  200  yards  of  white 
cloth.     One  hundred  pounds  cotton,  BOO  yards  of  pretty  equal  general 
appearance,  taking  a  medium  set  of  light  cloth  as  an  example.     (Mr. 
John  Mulholland,  Soc.  Sc.  Trans.,  1867,  p.  151.) 


CHEAP  FOOD.  123 

erring  of  food  is,  without  any  qualification,  an  advantage  ; 
that  the  use  of  oat  and  corn  meal,  and  even  of  the  dreaded 
and  despised  potato,  has  been  a  help,  a  most  important 
help,  to  many  struggling  communities,  and  may  be,  in 
the  same  degree,  to-day  to  any  community  where  the 
land  is  not  locked  up  in  feudal  tenures,  where  industry  is 
unconstrained,  where  class  legislation  has  not  put  labor  at 
disadvantage,  and  the  native  desires  and  aspirations  of  man 
are  allowed  fair  play.  Did  the  substitution  of  "  rye  and 
Indian"  for  the  dearer  wheat  tend  to  degrade  the  people 
of  New-England?  The  question  is  grotesque  in  its 
absurdity.  It  left  the  more  wealth  and  labor  to  be  applied 
to  higher  uses  than  filling  the  belly.  It  allowed  just  so 
much  the  more  to  be  done  in  the  way  of  making  decent 
and  comfortable  homes ;  of  erecting  churches  and  school- 
houses,  and  supporting  the  offices  of  religious  and  secular 
instruction;  of  clearing  the  ground,  opening  roads,  and 
building  bridges ;  of  making  ample  provision  for  old  age, 
for  the  endowment  of  dependent  members  of  the  family, 
and  for  the  equipment  of  the  young  for  their  struggle,  in 
their  turn,  with  nature  and  with  men.  It  allowed  the  child 
to  go  to  school,  not  grudging  the  wages  he  might  earn  by 
starving  his  mind.1  It  allowed  the  wife  and  the  daughter 
to  keep  the  house,  making  possible  that  sterling  sense  of 
decency  which  has  been  the  savor  of  New-England  life. 
That  is  what  the  substitution  of  cheaper  food  did  for  early 
New-England,  and  what  it  might  do  and  would  do  among 
any  people  taught  to  fear  God  and  not  man,  accustomed 
to  decent  belongings,  and  cherishing  generous  aspirations. 
Has  the  use  of  the  potato  by  the  Irish  in  America,  so  far 

1  No  small  sacrifice  for  poor  folks.  Mr.  Gould  in  his  very  interest- 
ing Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes  of  Switzerland,  in 
1872,  estimates  the  average  loss  to  working  families  from  requiring 
the  school  attendance  of  children  above  twelve  years  of  age  to  be  £10 
to  £12  per  annum,  for  each  child  so  withdrawn  from  labor  (p.  849). 
Such  expenses,  when  made  "  necessary,"  are  a  deal  better  than  dear 
food. 


124  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

as  it  has  been  used — and  it  has  been  used  very  freely — been 
in  any  sense  or  in  any  degree  an  injury  to  them  ?  Far 
otherwise :  it  has  enabled  them  to  acquire  their  little  home- 
steads1 the  more  rapidly  ;  it  has  enabled  them  to  put  tea, 
coffee,  and  sugar  on  their  table ;  to  clothe  their  wives  de- 
cently on  week  days  and  handsomely  on  the  Sabbath  ;  to 
give  their  children  their  time  at  school,  and  send  them 
there  with  shoes  and  stockings2  on  their  feet  that  they 
may  not  be  ashamed  before  the  American  children.  Such 
has  been  the  influence  of  the  potato  on  the  fortunes  of  the 
Irish  in  the  United  States ;  and  there  is  no  reason,  aside 
from  the  oppression,  spoliation,  and  proscription  practised 
for  many  generations  by  the  English  in  Ireland,  why  the 
same  cause  should  not  have  produced  the  same  effect  there. 
Justice  and  equal  rights  have  made  the  Irish  industrious 
and  provident ;  and  in  such  a  condition  any  lowering  of 
the  cost  of  subsistence  is  a  distinct,  unqualified  advantage. 
In  America  the  Irish,  no  matter  how  newly  arrived,  have 
shown  a  passionate  eagerness  to  acquire  homesteads,  for 

1 1  have  before  me  the  tax  and  valuation  lists  of  a  township  in  Massa- 
chusetts containing  a  smart  manufacturing  village.  The  total  popula- 
tion of  the  township  was  about  3300.  The  Irish  males  above  18  years 
of  age  numbered  229.  Of  these,  128  paid  taxes  upon  property.  The 
total  amount  of  estate  owned  by  these  128  Irishmen,  exclusive  of  all 
money  in  savings-banks  (the  deposits  of  these  institutions  being  taxed 
en  masse  by  the  State  without  distinction  of  ownership),  was  $163,560, 
being  an  average  to  each  holder  of  $1278. 

8  "  Custom  has  rendered  leather  shoes  a  necessary  of  life  in  England. 
The  poorest  creditable  person  of  either  sex  would  be  ashamed  to  appear 
in  public  without  them.  In  Scotland  custom  has  rendered  them  a 
necessary  of  life  to  the  lowest  order  of  men,  but  not  to  the  same  order 
of  women,  who  may,  without  any  discredit,  walk  about  barefooted. 
In  France  they  are  necessaries  neither  to  men  nor  to  women,  the  low- 
est rank  of  both  sexes  appearing  there  publicly,  without  any  discredit, 
sometimes  in  wooden  shoes,  and  sometimes  barefooted." — Adam  Smith, 
Wealth  of  Nations,  ii.  467. 

Mr.  Senior  says  of  shoes :  "  When  a  Scotchman  rises  from  the  lowest 
to  the  middling  classes  of  society,  they  become  to  him  necessaries. 
He  wears  them  to  preserve,  not  his  feet,  but  his  station  in  life."— Pol. 
Econ.,  pp.  36,  37. 


TEE  STANDARD  OF  LIVING.  125 

which  they  will  labor  and  for  which  they  will  deny  them- 
selves. Cheap  food  here  has  helped  them  to  accomplish 
this  object  more  easily  and  quickly.  Cheap  food  in  Ire- 
land did  not  tend  in  the  same  direction,  but  the  rather 
allowed  and  excited  a  dangerous  increase  of  population : 
and  this  for  reasons  which  the  public  conscience  of  Eng- 
land has  long  recognized. 

All  this  potato-philosophy  is  based  upon  the  assump- 
tion that,  excepting  small  expenditures  for  clothing  and 
shelter,1  nothing  can  be  made  indispensable  or  "  necessary" 
to  the  workingman  except  his  food ;  and  that  his  food 
will  consist  practically  of  a  single  staple  article,  the  cost 
of  which  will  govern  his  whole  expenditure ;  and  hence, 
if  that  staple  article  be  cheapened,  the  consequences  pre- 
dicted by  Prof.  Rogers  will,  in  the  persistence  of  the  sexual 
instincts,  inevitably  ensue.  But  we  in  the  United  States 
know  very  well,  first,  that  a  cheap  staple  article  of  food 
may  be  compatible  with  a  lavish  expenditure  on  garnishes, 
fruits,  condiments,  relishes,  and  drinks  ;a  arid,  secondly,  that 
a  great  many  things  may  be  made  indispensable  to  the 
working  classes  beyond  their  food ;  that,  moreover,  the 
higher  the  industrial  desires  rise,  the  more  tenacious  and 
persistent  they  are ;  that  tastes,  when  once  inspired,  are 
not  only  more  costly  than  appetites,  but  are  far  stronger ;' 

1  "  The  worst-paid  class  in  England,  the  agricultural  laborers,  ex- 
pend about  two  thirds  of  their  revenues  in  food  and  one  third  in  other 
objects." — Jones,  Pol.  Econ.,p.  99. 

Mr.  Mill  makes  this  strange  remark  respecting  "  the  workpeople," 
having,  presumably,  those  of  England  in  mind :  "  They  are  not  the 
principal  customers,  if  customers  at  all,  of  most  branches  of  manufac- 
ture." It  would  puzzle  one  to  tell  of  what  branches  of  manufacture  the 
workpeople  of  the  United  States  are  not  customers. 

2  Wheat-flour  is  very    cheap    in   the  United  States,  corn  and  oat 
meal  relatively  much  cheaper.     The  cost  of  these  articles  can  scarcely 
be  said  to  govern  the  expenditure  of  an  American  family.     Many  a 
mechanic  spends  as  much  for  milk,  butter,  and  egga  as  he  does  for 
flour  and  meal. 

*  "  The  great  preventive  check  ia  the  fear  of  losing  decencies."— 
Senior,  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  38. 


126  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

that  the  industrial  desires  are  constantly  multiplying  and 
intensifying  among  a  people  where  political  freedom  and 
social  ambition  exist,  such  desires  extending  themselves 
rapidly  even  among  new  comers  or  persons  just  released 
from  thraldom  ;  that  decent  and  comfortable  homes,  with 
yards  and  gardens,  schoolhouses  and  churches,  may  be* 
come  just  as  "  necessary"  in  such  a  community  as  food 
and  drink  ;  that  parents  in  such  a  community  will  gladly 
deny  themselves  the  wages  their  children  might  earn,  in 
order  to  send  them  to  school,  and  the  husband  gladly  deny 
himself  the  wages  his  wife  might  earn,  in  order  that  she 
may  "  keep  the  house."1  When  such  desires  and  aspirations 
are  once  enkindled,  any  cheapening  of  the  food  of  the 
people  merely  releases  just  so  much  wealth  to  be  bestowed 
on  other  and  higher  objects. 

Let  me  not  be  understood  as  objecting  to  the  proposition 
that  the  use  of  the  potato  by  any  people  as  the  sole  article 
of  food  is  injurious  and  dangerous,  but  only  as  taking  ex- 
ception to  the  reason  assigned  therefor.  It  is  because  this 
crop  is  a  most  precarious  one,  and  because  the  potato,  wrhile 
forming  an  admirable  element  in  a  diversified  diet,  is  not 

1  The  proportion  of  breadwinners  to  dependants  will  of  course  vary 
greatly  with  the  habits  and  dispositions  of  the  people  in  the  respects 
mentioned  in  the  text. 

The  results  of  Cantillon's  computations  are  thus  stated  by  Adam 
Smith :  "  Mr.  Cantillon  seems  to  suppose  that  the  lowest  species  of 
common  laborers  must  everywhere  earn  at  least  double  their  own  main- 
tenance in  order  that,  one  with  another,  they  may  be  enabled  to  bring 
up  two  children ;  the  labor  of  the  wife,  on  account  of  her  necessary 
attendance  on  the  children,  being  supposed  no  more  than  sufficient 
to  provide  for  herself.  But  one  half  the  children  born,  it  is  com- 
puted, die  before  the  age  of  manhood.  The  poorest  laborers,  therefore, 
according  to  this  account,  must,  one  with  another,  attempt  to  rear  at 
least  four  children  in  order  that  two  may  have  an  equal  chance  of  liv- 
ing to  that  age.  But  the  necessary  maintenance  of  four  children,  it  is 
supposed,  may  be  nearly  equal  to  that  of  one  man."— Pol.  Econ.  i.  71. 
The  rudeness  of  these  computations  appears  on  the  face.  In  Belgium, 
in  1856,  49.3  per  cent  of  the  population  were  reported  as  pursuing 
gainful  occupations  ;  in  the  United  States,  in  1870,  only  32.4  per  cent ; 
in  England  and  Wales,  in  1871,  51  per  cent ;  in  Scotland,  43.7  per  cent. 


THE  STANDARD  OF  LIVING.  137 

fitted  physiologically  to  be  the  sole  nutriment  of  human 
beings,  that  its  exclusive  use  is  undesirable.  So  far  as  it 
is  to  be  used,  its  cheapness  is  a  recommendation ;  and  if 
all  other  articles  of  food  used  with  it  could  be  cheapened 
to  its  level,  it  would  be  so  much  the  better  in  any  commu- 
nity where  laws  are  free  and  education  general.  Given 
these,  the  native  desires  and  aspirations  of  men  will  find 
objects  enough1  on  which  to  expend  the  labor  which  is 
released  from  the  slavery  of  ministering  to  the  merely 
animal  necessities  of  the  body.  I  say  "  slavery,"  for  that 
labor  is  only  truly  free  which  is  exercised  as  the  result 
of  a  choice.  So  far  as  a  man  is  driven  by  brutal  hunger  to 
work  he  differs  not  much  from  a  slave ;  when  he  works 
because  he  chooses  exertion  rather  than  privation  of  things 
agreeable  and  honorable,  his  labor  is  that  of  the  free  man. 


1  Contrast  the  Swiss  and  the  Russian.  Consul  Egerton  reports  that 
an  incentive  to  labor  is  the  great  desideratum  in  Russia.  "  In  the 
truly  agricultural  districts  the  peasant,  earning  enough  for  his  wants 
during  the  summer  months,  remains  idle  throughout  the  winter." — Re- 
port of  1873  (Textile  Factories),  p.  92,  note.  So  much  for  a  land  where 
the  people  are  universally  ignorant,  and  are  despotically  governed. 
In  Switzerland,  to  the  contrary,  Mr.  Gould  reports,  "  Men  who  during 
the  short  tourist  season  frequently  earn  as  guides,  porters,  etc. ,  enough 
to  keep  themselves  and  their  families  in  comfort  during  the  remain- 
der of  the  year,  may  nevertheless  be  seen  in  whiter  willingly  exposing 
themselves  to  the  severest  hardships  for  the  small  sum  of  a  franc  or 
two  a  day." — Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes,  1872, 
p.  346. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE   WAGES    OF   THE    LABORER    ARE    PAID   OUT    OF     THE    PRO- 
DUCT  OF   HIS    INDUSTRY.1 

A  POPULAR  theory  of  wages,  of  which  we  shall  have  here- 
after to  speak,  is  based  upon  the  ^ssurnption  that  wages 
are  paid  out  of  capital,  the  saved  results  of  the  industry  of 
the  past.  Hence,  it  is  argued,  capital  must  furnish  the  mea- 
sure of  wages.  On  the  contrary,  I  hold  that  wages  are?  in  a 
philosophical  view  of  the  subject,  paid  out  of  the  product  of 
present  industry,  and  hence  that  production  furnishes  the 
true  measure  of  wages.  The  difference  may  be  found  to 
be  an  important  one  ;  and  I  will  therefore  state  the  grounds 
of  my  belief. 

An  employer  pays  wages  to  purchase  labor,  not  to  expend 
a  fund  of  which  he  may  be  in  possession.  He  purchases 
labor  not  because  he  desires  to  keep  it  employed,  but  as 
a  means  to  the  production  of  wealth.  He  produces  wealth 
not  for  the  sake  of  producing  it,  but  with  a  view  to  a 
profit  to  himself,  individually,  in  that  production.  Doubt- 
less there  is  a  satisfaction  in  conferring  benefits  on  the  de- 
pendent, a  pride  in  directing  great  operations,  an  enthusi- 
asm of  work,  which  make  up  a  part  of  the  compensation 
of  many  employers ;  but  it  is  evident  that  these  can  not  be 
relied  upon  to  any  great  extent  as  motives  to  the  systematic 

1  The  substance  of  this  and  the  following  chapter  appeared  in  the 
North  American  Review  for  January,  1875;  art.,  The  Wage-Fund 
Theory. 


WAGES  PAID  FROM  PRODUCTION.  129 

and  sustained  production  of  wealth  through  wage-labor. 
Individual  profit  is,  and  must  remain,  the  great  reason  for 
production.  If  a  person  have  wealth,  that  of  itself  consti- 
tutes no  reason  at  all  to  him  why  he  should  expend  any 
portion  of  it  on  labor,  on  machinery,  or  on  materials.  It 
is  only  as  he  sees  that  he  can  increase  that  wealth  through 
production  that  the  impulse  to  employ  it  in  those  direc- 
tions is  felt.  But  for  the  profits  by  which  he  hopes  thus 
to  increase  his  store,  it  would  be  alike  easier  and  safer 
for  him  to  keep  his  wealth  at  rest  than  to  put  it  in  motion 
for  the  benefit  of  others. 

It  is  true  that  an  employer  may  for  a  time  produce  with- 
out profits,  or  even  at  a  loss  ;  but  this  will  be  for  the  sake 
of  holding  together  his  working  force,  or  his  body  of  cus- 
tomers, in  the  hope  of  better  times  when  he  can  make  him- 
self good  for  present  hardship,  or  because  he  has  formed 
contracts  or  engagements  which  law  or  business-honor 
compel  him  to  fill  at  any  sacrifice.  These  cases  do  not 
constitute  a  substantial  exception  to  the  principle  that  the 
motive  to  the  purchase  of  labor  is  found  in  the  profits  of 
production. 

But  again  it  is  evident  that  an  employer  will  be  dis- 
posed to  produce,  within  the  limits  of  the  agencies  at  his 
command,  all  that  he  can  produce  at  a  profit  to  himself. 
So  long  as  additional  profits  are  to  be  made  by  the  employ- 
ment of  additional  labor,  so  long  a  sufficient  reason  for 
production  exists  ;  when  profit  is  no  longer  expected,  the 
reason  for  production  ceases.  At  this  point  the  mere  fact 
that  the  employer  has  capital  at  his  command  no  more 
constitutes  a  reason  why  he  should  use  it  in  production 
when  he  can  get  no  profits,  than  the  fact  that  the  laborer 
has  legs  and  arms  constitutes  a  reason  why  he  should  work 
when  he  can  get  no  wages. 

We  repeat,  the  employer  purchases  labor  with  a  view  to 
the  product  of  the  labor  ;  and  the  kind  and  amount  of  that 
product  determine  what  wages  he  can  afford  to  pay.  He 
must,  in  the  long  run,  pay  less  than  that  product,  less  by  a 


130  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

sum  which  is  to  constitute  his  own  profits.  If  that  pro- 
duct is  to  be  greater,  he  can  afford  to  pay  more  ;  if  it  is  to 
be  smaller,  he  must,  for  his  own  interest,  pay  less.  It  is, 
then,  for  the  sake  of  future  production  that  the  laborers 
are  employed,  not  at  all  because  the  employer  has  posses- 
sion of  a  fund  which  he  must  disburse  ;  and  it  is  the  value 
of  the  product,  such  as  it  is  likely  to  prove,  which  de- 
termines the  amount  of  the  wages  that  can  be  paid,  not  at 
all  the  amount  of  wealth  which  the  employer  has  in  posses- 
sion or  can  command.  Thus  it  is  production,  not  capital, 
which  furnishes  the  motive  for  employment  and  the 
measure  of  wages. 

But  it  may  be  said,  we  grant  that  wages  are  really  paid 
out  of  the  product  of  current  industry,  and  that  capital 
only  affects  wages  as  it  first  affects  production,  so  that 
wages  stand  related  to  product  in  the  first  degree  and 
to  capital  in  the  second  degree  only ;  still,  does  not  produc- 
tion bear  a  certain  and  necessary  ratio  to  capital  ?  and 
hence  may  not  the  measure  of  wages  be  derived  from  cap- 
ital virtually — though  not,  it  is  true,  directly — through 
its  determination  of  the  product  ?  By  no  means.  It 
would  be  easy  to  adduce  many  successive  reasons  why 
capital  bears  no  certain  or  constant  ratio  to  production, 
but  two  will  abundantly  serve  our  turn. 

(a)  The  ratio  which  capital  bears  to  the  product  of  indus- 
try varies,  all  other  things  remaining  equal,  with  the  scanti- 
ness or  abundance  of  natural  agents.  One  hundred  laborers 
having  the  use  of  a  capital  which  we  will  represent  by  lOa? 
may  not,  in  one  set  of  circumstances,  be  able  to  produce 
anywhere  near  twice  as  much  as  50  laborers  using  the 
same  amount  of  capital ;  or,  under  a  different  set  of  cir- 
cumstances, they  may  be  able  to  produce  far  more  than 
twice  as  much.  With  unlimited  natural  agents,  as  in  new 
countries  like  America  and  Australia,  the  100  may,  through 
the  minuter  subdivision  of  labor  and  the  more  effective 
co-operation  which  their  numbers  allow,  produce  twice  as 
much  as  50  with  a  capital  of  12#,  or  as  60  with  a  capital 


RATIO  OF  CAPITAL   TO  PRODUCT.  131 

of  10#.  On  the  other  hand,  with  limited  natural  agents, 
after  the  condition  of  "  diminishing  returns"  has  been 
reached,  the  100  may  be  able  to  produce  only  twice  as 
much  as  50  with  a  capital  of  8a?,  or  as  40  with  a  capital  of 


(b)  The  differences  in  the  ratio  between  capital  and 
the  product  of  industry  which  are  caused  by  the  economi- 
cal quality  of  a  people,  their  intelligence,  sobriety,  and 
thrift,  their  capacity  for  self-direction  and  industrial  or- 
ganization, their  manual  dexterity  and  mechanical  aptitude, 
are  greater  even  than  those  due  to  the  bounty  of  nature. 
(liven  machinery,  raw  materials,  and  a  year's  subsistence 
for  1000  laborers,  does  it  make  no  difference  with  the 
annual  product  whether  those  laborers  are  Englishmen  or 
East-Indians  ?  Certainly  if  only  one  quarter  part  of  what 
lias  been  adduced  under  the  head  of  the  efficiency  of 
labor  be  valid,  the  differences  in  the  product  of  industry 
arising  out  of  differences  in  the  industrial  quality  of  dis- 
tinct communities  of  laborers  are  so  great  as  to  prohibit  us 
from  making  use  of  capital  to  determine  the  amount  that 
can  be  expended  in  any  year  or  series  of  years  in  the  pur- 
chase of  labor. 

I  have  no  wish  to  disparage  the  importance  of  the  service 
rendered  in  production  by  capital,  the  saved  results  of  the 
industry  of  the  past  ;  but  I  firmly  deny  that  it  furnishes 
the  measure  of  wages. 

But  while  wages  must  in  any  philosophical  view  of  the 
subject  be  regarded  as  paid  out  of  the  product  of  current 
industry,  wages  are,  to  a  very  considerable  degree,  in  all 
communities,  advanced1  out  of  capital,  and  this  from  the 
very  necessity  of  the  case  ;  while  in  those  countries  which 
have  accumulated  large  stores  of  wealth,  wages  are,  in  fact, 
very  generally,  if  not  universally,  so  advanced,  equally  for 


1  "  Elle  doit  etre  avancee  par  le  capitaliste  et  le  retrouver,  par  con- 
sequent, dans  la  valeur  du  produit  obtenu."— A.  E.  Cherbuliez,  Precis 
de  la  Science  £conomique,  i.  415. 


132  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

the  convenience  of  employers  and  of  the  employed.  Yet 
even  where  the  entire  amount  of  the  weekly  or  monthly 
pay-roll  is  taken  out  of  a  store  of  wealth  previously  gathered 
and  husbanded,  it  is  not  capital  out  of  which  wages  are 
borrowed,  but  production  out  of  which  they  are  finally 
paid,  to  which  we  must  look  to  find  their  true  measure.1 

I  have  said  that  in  all  communities  wages  are,  by  the  very- 
necessity  of  the  case,  advanced  to  a  considerable  extent  out 
of  capital.  It  is  only  in  a  few  industries,  mainly  of  the  class 
termed  "  extractive,"  and  in  these  only  when  pursued 
under  circumstances  peculiarly  favorable,  that  the  laborer 
can  eat  of  the  product  of  his  labor  for  the  day.  The  fish- 
erman, indeed,  or  the  hunter  may  live  from  hand  to 
mouth,  catching  and  killing  as  he  eats,  though  always  at 
the  imminent  risk  of  privation  and  even  of  starvation. 
But  the  tiller  of  the  soil  must  abide  in  faith  of  a  harvest, 
through  months  of  ploughing,  sowing,  and  cultivating ;  and 
his  industry  is  only  possible  as  food  has  been  stored  up  from 
the  crop  of  the  previous  year.  The  mechanical  laborer  is 
also  removed  by  a  longer  or  a  shorter  distance  from  the 
fruition  of  his  labor.  So  that  almost  universally,  it  may  be 
said,  the  laborer  as  he  works  is  fed  out  of  a  store  gathered 
by  previous  toil,  and  saved  by  the  self-denial  of  the  posses- 
sor. The  extent  of  this  provision,  thus  made  the  primary 
condition  of  industry,  may  be  rudely  measured  by  the  inter- 
val between  harvests.  And  this  provision  is  one  which  is 
not  made  without  great  sacrifice,  even  in  the  most  advanced 
stages  of  industry.  Vast  and  varied  as  is  the  accumulated 


1  Mr.  F.  D.  Longe,  in  his  Refutation  of  the  Wage-Fund  Theory, 
insists  on  this  distinction.  Of  the  wealth  or  capital  used  "  for  the 
maintenance  of  laborers  while  employed  in  producing  new  goods  or 
wealth/'  he  says,  it  "  may  come  either  from  their  (the  laborers')  own 
resources  or  those  of  their  employers,  or  be  borrowed  from  bankers  or 
elsewhere."  Of  the  wealth  "  to  be  used  for  the  purchase  of  their  work," 
he  says,  it "  may  consist  of  funds  belonging  to  the  consumer  or  of 
funds  belonging  to  the  employer,  or  both,  or  may  even  be  taken  out  of 
the  very  goods  which  the  laborers  produce,  or  their  money  value." 


SUBSISTENCE  ADVANCED  BY  CAPITAL.          133 

wealth  of  the  most  highly-civilized  communities,  the  store 
of  food  which  imist  be  kept  on  hand  to  meet  the  necessities 
of  the  year's  subsistence  constitutes  no  insignificant  part 
of  the  aggregate  value  ;  while  among  nations  which  com- 
prise, probably,  two  thirds  of  the  human  race,  so  severe  is 
the  struggle  with  nature,  so  hard  are  the  conditions  of  life, 
so  many  its  enemies,  that,  after  all  the  painful  accumula- 
tions of  centuries,  spring  remains  as  it  was  in  the  days  of 
Alkman,  "  the  season  of  short  fare,"  when  the  progress  of 
the  growing  crop  is  eagerly  watched,  not  with  eyes  greedy 
of  gain,  but  with  eyes  hollow  from  hunger.1 

To  the  extent  of  a  year's  subsistence,  then,  it  is  necessary 
that  some  one  should  stand  ready  to  make  advances  to  the 
wage-laborer  out  of  the  products  of  past  industry.  All 
sums  so  advanced  come  out  of  capital ;  but  it  is  important 
to  note  that  it  need  not  be  the  capital  of  the  employer. 
The  laborer  himself  may  be  a  capitalist  to  this  extent. 
Where  the  reward  of  industry  is  as  liberal  as  it  is  in  America 
and  Australia,  there  is  no  reason  why  a  laborer  should  not 
save  enough  out  of  three  or  five  years'  wages  to  be  a  year 
beforehand,  and  thus,  so  far  as  the  employer  is  concerned, 
that  man's  labor  be  thereafter  freed  from  this  condition 
of  provisional  maintenance.  Moreover,  even  where  the 
laborers'  dependence  on  the  employer  for  the  year's  sub- 
sistence is  entire,  it  should  be  clearly  noted  (for  it  has  been 
strangely  overlooked,2  with  most  unfortunate  results  in  the 

1  "  There  is  in  Ireland,"  says  Alison,  "  what  is  called  the  *  starving 
season/ which  is  about  six  weeks  before  the  '  new  harvest.'"— Hist. 
Europe,  xxi.  204. 

8  "  A  very  little  consideration  will  render  it  evident  that  laborers 
whilst  engaged  in  any  particular  industry  can  not  live  upon  the  com- 
modity which  their  labor  is  assisting  to  produce.  The  ploughman 
who  tills  the  soil  from  which  in  the  following  autumn  the  harvest  will 
be  gathered,  iafed  with  the  wealth  which  his  master  has  saved  ;  or. 
in  other  words,  the  master  pays  his  laborer's  wages  from  the  wealth 
which  he  has  previously  saved."— Prof.  Fawcett,  Political  Economy, 
p.  19. 

Here  we  find  asserted  or  assumed,  (1)  the  necessity  of  the  laborer  fo? 


134  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

popular  theory  of  wages)  that  this  by  no  means  involves 
the  payment  of  his  entire  wages  in  advance  of  the  harvest- 
ing of  the  crop  or  the  marketing  of  the  goods.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  need  the  laborer  has  of  provisional  mainte- 
nance which  defeats  his  claim  to  a  payment,  over  and 
above  the  mere  cost  of  his  subsistence,  out  of  the  product 
when  completed.  It  may  be  that  poor  Piers,  the  plough- 
man, must,  as  Professor  Fawcett  says,  depend  daily  until 
harvest  upon  the  squire  for  bread  out  of  the  crop  of  the 
last  year ;  but  surely  that  constitutes  no  reason  why  Piers 
should  not  at  harvest  receive  some  sheaves  as  his  own. 
And  in  the  case  of  all  laborers  of  a  higher  class,  whose 
wages  may  be  perhaps  twice  or  three  times  the  cost  of 
their  bare  subsistence,  it  is  evident  that,  in  countries  where 
capital  is  scarce,  the  advances  which  are  likely  to  be  made 
to  them  during  the  year  will  leave  a  very  considerable  por- 
tion of  the  wages  to  be  taken  out  of  the  product  at  the  close 
of  the  year. 

But  how  largely,  in  fact,  are  wages  advanced  out  of  capi- 
tal ?  In  old  countries,  to  a  very  great  extent  certainly. 
Yet  even  in  these  there  is  but  a  small  proportion  of 
cases  where  wages  are  paid  of  tener  than  once  a  week — that 
is,  where  the  laborer  does  not  trust  his  employer  with  six 
days'  work.  And  in  some  exceptional  industries  it  hap- 
pens that  the  employer  realizes  on  his  product1  in  a  shorter 


maintenance  while  the  crop  is  growing  ;  (2)  his  entire  dependence  on 
the  employer  for  that  maintenance ;  (3)  the  natural  equivalency  of 
subsistence  and  wages. 

1  I  may  mention,  in  illustration,  the  case  of  transportation  compa- 
nies, owning  railroads,  canals,  steamboats,  or  coaches.  The  employees 
of  such  companies  in  the  United  States  number  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands, and  they  are  rarely  paid  by  the  day,  commonly  by  the  week  or 
month.  Yet  the  companies  collect  all  their  fares  for  passage  and  a 
portion  of  their  charges  for  freight,  daily.  They  are  thus  always 
in  debt,  often  to  a  vast  amount,  to  their  laborers  (using  that  term  in  its 
generic  sense)  for  services  which  have  been  rendered  to  them,  and  of 
which  they  have  availed  themselves  to  the  full  extent.  So  that  the 


EMPLOYERS  IN  DEBT  TO  LABORERS.  135 

time  than  this,  so  that  the  laborer  is  not  only  paid  out  of 
the  product  of  his  industry,  but  actually  advances  to  the 
employer  a  portion  of  the  capital  on  which  he  operates. 
Quite  as  common,  probably,  even  yet  in  countries  which 
we  may  call  old,  as  weekly  payments  are  monthly  pay- 
ments ;  and  here  the  probability  that  the  laborer  may  re- 
ceive his  wages  out  of  the  price  of  this  marketed  product 
increases  with  the  quadrupled  time  given  the  employer  to 
dispose  of  it.  Yet  even  here  the  cases  are  doubtless  excep- 
tional where  the  employer  does  not  have  to  "  stand  out," 
for  a  longer  or  a  shorter  time,  of  the  amount  which  he 
pays  in  wages,  though  always,  be  it  remembered,  in  the 
expectation  of  a  reimbursement  out  of  the  product  when 
marketed,  the  anticipated  price  of  the  product  determin- 
ing the  amount  which  he  can  safely  thus  advance. 

In  new  countries,  by  which  we  mean  those  to  which 
men  have  gone  with  the  industrial  ideas  and  ambitions  of 
older  communities,  but  with  an  amount  of  capital  which, 
from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  is  more  or  less  inadequate 
to  the  undertakings  for  which  their  skill  and  labor  qualify 
them,  the  wages  of  labor  are  paid  only  partially  out  of 
capital.  The  history  of  our  own  country  so  amply  illus- 
trates this  statement  that  we  need  not  go  elsewhere  for 
examples.  From  the  first  settlement  of  the  colonies  down 
to  the  discovery  of  gold  in  California,  laborers,  whether  in 
agriculture  or  in  manufactures,  were,  as  a  rule,  hired  by 
the  year,  and  paid  at  the  end  of  the  year.  Bare  subsistence 
might  be  furnished  by  the  employer  meanwhile ;  small 
amounts  of  money  might  be  advanced  "  for  accommoda- 
tion ;"  the  laborer's  tax  bill  or  doctor's  bill  might  be  settled 
by  the  employer ;  but  these  payments  were  not  to  such  an 
extent  (except  in  case  of  protracted  sickness  or  sudden  mis- 
fortune) but  that  the  employer  was  always  in  debt  to  his 
laborer. 

companies  are  virtually  carrying  on  their  operations  on  capital  a  por- 
tion of  which  is  advanced  by  their  own  employees.  Many  other  ex- 
amples might  be  given. 


13ft  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

I  have  before  me  a  considerable  collection  of  accounts 
taken  from  the  books  of  farmers  in  different  sections  as  late 
as  1851.  These  show  the  hands  charged  with  advances  of 
the  most  miscellaneous  character.  There  are  charges  for 
grain  and  salted  meats  from  the  product  of  the  previous  year, 
for  cash  for  minor  personal  expenses,  for  bootmaker's  bills, 
grocer's  bills,  apothecary's  bills,  doctor's  bills,  and  even  town- 
tax  bills,  settled  by  the  employer,  for  the  use  of  teams  for 
hauling  wood  for  the  laborer,  or  breaking  up  his  garden 
in  the  spring.  Yet  in  general  the  amount  of  such  advances 
does  not  exceed  one  third,  and  it  rarely  reaches  one  half,  of 
the  stipulated  wages  of  the  year.  Now  it  is  idle  to  speak 
of  wages  thus  paid  as  coming  out  of  capital.  At  the  time 
these  contracts  were  made  the  wealth  which  was  to  pay 
these  wages  was  not  in  existence.  At  the  time  these  ser- 
vices were  rendered,  that  wealth  was  not  in  existence.  It 
came  into  existence  only  as  the  result  of  those  contracts 
and  the  rendering  of  those  services. 

Not  less  distinctly  did  this  system  of  paying  wages  pre- 
vail in  the  department  of  manufacturing  industry  during 
the  same  period.  Extensive  inquiries  have  satisfied  me 
that  manufacturers  in  New-England  did  not  generally 
leave  off  paying  their  workmen  by  the  year  until  after 
1854:  or  1855.  Some  of  the  more  successful  were  able  to 
make  the  change  to  quarterly  or  monthly  payments  as  early 
as  1851.  A  gentleman  conducting  one  of  the  largest, 
oldest,  and  most  successful  manufacturing  establishments 
in  Massachusetts  informs  me  that,  up  to  the  earliest  of  the 
dates  mentioned,  his  firm  paid  their  workmen  yearly ; 
and  any  hand  requiring  an  advance  of  wages  on  work  done 
was  charged  interest  at  current  rates  to  the  end  of  the 
year. 

Now  in  this  there  was  nothing  unjust  or  ungenerous. 
Such  an  arrangement  was  the  very  condition  on  which 
alone  the  industry  could  be  prosecuted,  on  which  alone 
employment  could  be  given.     Capital  was  scarce,  because  \ 
the  country  was  comparatively  new ;  and  if  wages  had  been  1 


PRODUCTION  THE  MEASURE  OF  WAGES.         137 

measured  by  capital,  wages  must  have  been  low ;  but  at 
the   same  time   production    was  large,1  because    natural 
agents  were  copious  and  efficient,  and  labor  was  intelligent 
and  skilful,  and  as  it  is  production,  not  capital,  which 
affords  the  measure  of  wages,  wages  were  high ;  but  the 
workmen  had  to  wait  for  them  till  the  crop  was  harvested 
or  the  goods  sold.     And  this  they  gladly  did,  and  never  for 
an  instant  suspected  they  were  being  paid  out  of  capital ; 
indeed,  they  knew  better,  for  they  had  seen  growing  under 
their  hands  that  in  which  they  were  finally  paid.     In  the 
Middle  States  the  change  referred  to  came  a  few  years 
later  than  in  New-England ;  yet  by  the  outbreak  of  the 
civil  war  monthly  or  weekly  payment  of  wages  had  proba- 
bly become  more  general  than  payment  by  the  year. 

Farther  to  the  "West  and  South  the  change  to  monthly 
and  weekly  payments  has,  in  many  sections,  not  yet  begun. 
In  these  parts  of  our  country  the  payment  of  wages 
out  of  capital  is  scarcely  more  common  than  it  was  in 
New-England  a  hundred  years  ago.  The  employer  ad- 
vances to  the  laborer  such  provisions  and  cash  as  are 
absolutely  required  from  time  to  time ;  but  the  "  settle- 
ment "  does  not  take  place  until  the  close  of  the  season  or 
of  the  year,  and  the  final  payment  is  often  deferred  until 
the  crop  is  not  only  harvested  but  sold. 

But  whether  wages  are  advanced  out  of  capital  in  whole, 
or  in  part,  or  not  at  all,  it  still  remains  true  that  it  is  the 
product  to  which  the  employer  looks  to  ascertain  the 
amount  which  he  can  afford  to  pay :  the  value  of  the  pro- 
duct furnishes  the  measure  of  wages.  When  the  em- 
ployer shall  pay  is  a  financial  question ;  what  he  shall  pay 
is  the  true  industrial  question  with  which  we  have  to  do  in 
treating  wages.  This  is  determined  by  the  efficiency  of 
labor  under  the  conditions  existing  at  the  time  and  place. 


1  u  Capitalists  and  laborers  receive  large  remuneration  in  America 
because  their  industry  produces  largely."— J.  E.  Cairnes,  Some  Lead- 
ing Principles,  etc. ,  p.  462. 


CHAPTEK  IX. 

THERE     IS     NO     WAGE-FUND   IRRESPECTIVE    OF     THE     NUMBER 
AND   INDUSTRIAL    QUALITY    OF    LABORERS. 

WE  can  not  well  go  farther  in  our  discussion  without  con- 
sidering a  theory  of  wages  which  has  been  very  generally 
accepted  by  the  political  economists  of  the  English  school, 
namely,  that  of  a  Wage^Fund. 

The  doctrine  is  in  substance  as  follows  : 

There  is,  for  any  country,  at  any  time,  a  sum  of  wealth 
set  apart  for  the  payment  of  wages.  This  fund  is  a  por- 
tion of  the  aggregate  capital  of  the  country.  The  ratio 
between  the  aggregate  capital  and  the  portion  devoted  to 
the  payment  of  wages  is  not  necessarily  always  the  same. 
It  may  vary,  from  time  to  time,  with  the  conditions  of  in- 
dustry and  the  habits  of  the  people ;  but  at  any  given  time 
the  amount  of  the  wage-fund,  under  the  conditions  exist- 
ing, is  determined  in  the  amount  of  capital. 

The  wage-fund,  therefore,  may  be  greater  or  less  at 
another  time,  but  at  the  time  taken  it  is  definite.  The 
amount  of  it  can  not  be  increased  by  force  of  law  or  of 
public  opinion,  or  through  sympathy  and  compassion  on 
the  part  of  employers,  or  as  the  result  of  appeals  or 
efforts  on  the  part  of  the  working  classes.1 


1  "  That  which  pays  for  labor  in  every  country  is  a  certain  portion 
of  actually-accumulated  capital,  which  can  not  be  increased  by  the 
proposed  action  of  government,  nor  by  the  influence  of  public  opinion, 
nor  by  combinations  among  the  workmen  themselves.  There  is  also 


THE  WAGE-FUND  THEORY.  139 

The  sum  so  destined  to  the  payment  of  wages  is  distri- 
buted by  competition.  If  one  obtains  more,  another  must, 
for  that  reason,  receive  less,  or  be  kept  out  of  employment 
altogether.  Laborers  are  paid  out  of  this  sum,  and  out  of 
this  alone.  The  whole  of  that  sum  is  distributed  without 
loss  ;  and  the  average  amount  received  by  each  laborer  is, 
therefore,  precisely  determined  by  the  ratio  existing  be- 
tween the  wage-fund  and  the  number  of  laborers,  or,  as 
some  writers  have  preferred  to  call  it,  between  capital  and 
population.1 

The  wage-fund  having  at  any  given  time  been  deter- 
mined for  that  time,  the  rate  of  wages  will  be  according  to 
the  number  of  persons  then  applying  for  employment.8 
If  they  be  more,  wages  will  be  low ;  if  they  be  fewer, 
wages  will  be  high. 

I  have  stated  this  doctrine  minutely,  with  something  of 
iteration,  and  with  full  quotations,  in  order  to  avoid  all 
suspicion  of  misrepresenting  that  which  I  propose  to  assail. 
An  excellent  summary  of  the  doctrine  is  that  given  by  Mr. 
John  Stuart  Mill,  in  the  Fortnightly  Eeview  for  May,  1869, 
as  follows : 

"  There  is  supposed  to  be,  at  any  given  instant,  a  sum  of 
wealth  which  is  unconditionally  devoted  to  the  payment  of 
wages  of  labor.  This  sum  is  not  regarded  as  unalterable, 
for  it  is  augmented  by  saving,  and  increases  with  the  pro- 


in  every  country  a  certain  number  of  laborers,  and  this  number  can  not 
be  diminished  by  the  proposed  action  of  government,  nor  by  public 
opinion,  nor  by  combinations  among  themselves.     There  is  to  be  a  di- 
vision now  among  all  these  laborers  of  the  portion  of  capital  actually  ( 
there  present."— A.  L.  Perry,  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  122. 

1  "  The  circulating  capital  of  a  country  is  its  wage-fund.  Hence  if 
we  desire  to  calculate  the  average  money-wages  received  by  each 
laborer,  we  have  simply  to  divide  the  amount  of  this  capital  by  the 
number  of  the  laboring  population."— H.  Fawcett,  Economic  Position 
of  the  British  Laborer,  p.  120. 

a  »*  The  demand  for  labor  consists  of  the  whole  circulating  capital  of 
the  country,  *  *  *  *  The  supply  is  the  whole  laboring  popula- 
tion."—J.  S.  Mill,  Fortnightly  Review,  May,  1869. 


140  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

gress  of  wealth  ;  but  it  is  reasoned  upon  as  at  any  given 
moment  a  predetermined  amount.  More  than  that  amount 
it  is  assumed  the  wages-receiving  class  can  not  possibly 
divide  among  them  ;  that  amount,  and  no  less,  they  can  not 
but  obtain.  So  that  the  sum  to  be  divided  being  fixed,  the 
wages  of  each  depend  solely  on  the  divisor,  the  number  of 
participants." 

The  doctrine  of  the  wage-fund  has  found  wide  accept- 
ance on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic.  The  natural  history  of 
the  notion  on  which  it  rests  is  not  obscure.  It  grew  out 
of  the  condition  of  affairs  which  existed  in  England  during 
and  immediately  subsequent  to  the  Napoleonic  wars.  Two 
things  were  then  noted.  First,  capital  had  become  accumu- 
lated in  the  island  to  such  an  extent  that  employers  found  no 
(financial)  difficulty  in  paying  their  laborers  by  the  month, 
the  week,  or  the  day,  instead  of  requiring  them  to  await  the 
fruition  of  their  labor  in  the  harvested  or  marketed  product. 
Secondly,  the  wages  were,  in  fact,  generally  so  low  that  they 
furnished  no  more  than  a  bare  subsistence,  while  the  em- 
ployment offered  was  so  restricted  that  an  increase  in  the 
number  of  laborers  had  the  effect  to  throw  some  out  of 
employment  or  to  reduce  the  rate  of  wages  for  all.  Out 
of  these  things  the  wage-fund  theory  was  put  together. 
Wages  are  paid  out  of  capital,  and  the  rate  is  determined 
by  the  ratio  between  capital  and  population. 

Both  the  facts  observed  were  accidental,  not  essential. 
"Wages  in  England  were  paid  out  of  capital  because  capital 
had  become  abundant,  and  employers  could  just  as  well  as 
not  pay  their  laborers  as  soon  as  the  service  was  rendered. 
In  the  United  States,1  at  the  same  time,  employers  were 

1  "  The  spread  of  this  doctrine  in  the  United  States  is  not  to  be  ex- 
plained in  the  same  way.  It  would  seem  to  have  been  accepted,  so  far 
as  it  has  been  accepted,  upon  the  authority  of  the  English  economists. 
Certainly  the  conditions  which  have  been  noted  as  prevailing  in  Eng- 
land during  the  period  when  the  laborer's  subsistence  came  to  be 
identified  with  his  wages,  have  at  no  time  been  known  in  the  United 
States.  Here  the  people  have  not  been  shut  out  from  the  land  ;  the 


WAGES  IF  THE  UNITED  STATES.  Ul 

paying  their  laborers  larger  wages,  but  obliging  them  to 
wait  for  the  whole  or  a  considerable  part  till  the  product 
should  be  harvested  or  marketed.  In  the  United  States, 
therefore,  the  industrial  conditions  were  more  favorable 
to  the  payment  of  wages,  while  in  England  the  financial 
conditions  were  more  favorable.  But  it  is  the  industrial 
conditions  which  determine  the  amount  of  wages,  the 
necessaries,  comforts,  and  luxuries  which  the  laborer  re- 
ceives ;  the  financial  conditions  only  determine  the  manner 
and  time  of  payment,  whether  at  once  or  at  a  future  day, 
whether  in  money  or  in  goods,  etc. 

Again,  the  fact  that  in  England,  at  the  time  this  doc- 
trine sprang  up,  an  increase  of  the  number  of   laborers 


laboring  classes  have  been  able  to  make  and  have  made  vast  accumu- 
lations, and  the  great  bulk  of  wages  have,  since  the  first  settlement  of 
the  country,  been  paid,  not  out  of  capital,  but  out  of  the  completed  pro- 
duct when  harvested  or  marketed. 

"  The  wage-fund  seems  to  have  been  considered,  we  know  not  why,  a 
pillar  in  the  temple  of  free-trade.  Certainly  the  line  drawn  in  the 
United  States  between  those  who  have  accepted  it  and  those  who  have 
combated  it,  or  let  it  severely  alone,  appears  to  intimate  a  general 
sense  of  some  such  relation  between  the  doctrines.  We  find  no  trace 
of  it  among  the  writers  known  as  protectionists.  Professor  Bowen 
distinctly  rejects  it.  Messrs.  Daniel  Raymond  and  Peshine  Smith  omit 
all  allusion  to  it,  so  far  as  we  have  observed.  Mr.  Carey,  it  is  true, 
gave  it  countenance  in  his  Essay  on  Wages ;  but  then  Mr.  Carey 
was  a  free-trader  in  1835.  On  the  other  hand,  Professors  Vethake,  Bas- 
com,  and  Perry,  who  take  strong  ground  against  governmental  inter- 
ference with  the  methods  and  courses  of  industry,  all  strongly  pro- 
nounce the  wage-fund  theory. 

"  Dr.  Way  land,  whose  treatise  on  Political  Economy,  though  publish- 
ed in  1837,  would  appear  (see  Preface)  to  have  been  mainly  composed 
prior  to  the  emergence  in  distinct  form  of  the  wage-fund  theory,  fol- 
lowed Malthus  in  his  statement  of  the  law  of  wages.  (Wayland's  Pol. 
Econ.,p.  312.)  Excepting  Dr.  Wayland,  Mr.  Amasa  Walker  is  the 
only  American  writer  on  systematic  political  economy,  of  the  free- 
trade  school,  whom  we  remember  as  giving  no  countenance  to  the 
wage-fund  theory.  It  can  scarcely  need  to  be  said  that  we  regard  the 
idea  of  an  essential  connection  between  the  two  doctrines  as  wholly 
mistaken.  Free-trade  rose  without  this  theory  of  wages,  and  will  sure- 
ly not  fall  with  it." — North-American  Review,  cxx.,  pp.  93,  94,  note. 


143  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

applying  for  employment  involved,  as  it  doubtless  did,  a 
reduction  in  the  rate  of  wages,  was  due  to  the  circumstance 
that  English  agriculture,  in  the  then  existing  state  of  chemi- 
cal and  mechanical  knowledge,  had  reached  the  condition 
of  "  diminishing  returns."  But  at  the  same  time  in  the 
United  States,  the  accession  of  vast  bodies  of  laborers  was 
accompanied  with  a  steadily-increasing  remuneration  of 
labor,  and  States  and  counties  were  to  be  seen  bidding 
eagerly  against  each  other  for  these  industrial  recruits. 

That  English  writers  should  have  been  misled,  by  what 
they  saw  going  on  around  them,  into  converting  a  generali- 
zation of  insular  experiences  into  a  universal  law  of  wages, 
is  not  greatly  to  be  wondered  at ;  but  that  American  writ- 
ers should  have  adopted  this  doctrine,  in  simple  contempt 
of  what  they  saw  going  on  around  them,  is  indeed  sur- 
prising.1 

I  would  not  impeach  the  scientific  impartiality  of  those 
who  first  put  forward  in  distinct  form  this  theory  of  wages ; 
but  it  may  fairly  be  assumed  that  its  progress  towards 
general  acceptance  was  not  a  little  favored  by  the  fact  that 
it  afforded  a  complete  justification  for  the  existing  order  of 
things  respecting  wages.  If  there  was,  in  truth,  a  definite 
fund  out  of  which  wages  were  paid ;  if  competition  un- 
erringly distributed  the  wThole  of  that  snm ;  and  if  no 
more  could  be  paid  to  the  wages  class,  as  a  whole,  without 
impairing  capital,  diminishing  employment,  and  thus  in 
the  end  injuring  the  laborers  themselves,  then  surely  it 
was  an  easy  task  to  answer  the  complaints  or  remon- 

1  We  have  had  a  right  to  do  better  than  this  in  political  economy,  in 
the  United  States.  "  The  Americans  are  Englishmen  whose  intelli- 
gence is  not  intimidated  and  whose  conduct  is  not  controlled  by  many 
of  the  influences  derived  from  tradition  and  authority,  which  govern 
the  beliefs  and  actions  of  the  mother  country.  From  the  course  taken 
fc.y  the  United  States,  we  may  often  correctly  interpret  the  lent  which  our 
nation  will  follow  as  they  gradually  escape,  for  good  or  evil,  from  the 
rumination  of  the  past." — Address  of  Lord  Napier  and  Ettrick  as 
President  of  the  British  Social  Science  Assertion,  1872.  (Transac- 
tions, p.  17.) 


THE  WAGE-FUND  THEORY.  143 

strances  of  the  working  classes,  and  to  demonstrate  the 
futility  of  trades-unions  and  strikes  as  means  of  increasing 
wages.  If  an  individual  workman  complained  for  himself, 
he  could  be  answered  that  it  was  wholly  a  matter  between 
himself  and  his  own  class.  If  he  received  more,  another 
must,  on  that  account,  receive  less,  or  none  at  all.1  If  a 
workman  complained  on  account  of  his  class,  he  could  be 
told,  in  the  language  of  Prof.  Perry,  that  "  there  is  no  use 
in  arguing  against  any  one  of  the  four  fundamental  rules 
of  arithmetic.  TJie  question  of  wages  is  a  question  of 
division.  It  is  complained  that  the  quotient  is  too  small. 
"Well,  then,  how  many  ways  are  there  to  make  a  quotient 
larger  ?  Two  ways.  Enlarge  your  dividend,  the  divisor 
remaining  the  same,  and  the  quotient  will  be  larger ; 
lessen  your  divisor,  the  dividend  remaining  the  same,  and 
the  quotient  will  be  larger."  (Pol.  Ecoii.,  p.  123.) 

A  most  comfortable  doctrine  surely,3  and  one  which 
made  it  a  positive  pleasure  to  conduct  a  quarterly  review 
in  times  when  the  laboring  classes  were  discontented  or 
mutinous.  If  the  workman  would  not  give  up  when  told 
to  enlarge  his  dividend,  he  was  struck  dumb  on  being  in- 
formed that  his  only  alternative  was  to  lessen  his  divisor. 
The  divisor  aforesaid  being  flesh  and  blood,  with  certain 


1  "  If  law  or  opinion  succeeds  in  fixing  wages  above  this  rate,  some 
laborers  are  kept  out  of  employment." — J.  S.  Mill,  Pol.  Econ.,  i.  432. 

2  The  writer  has  been  sharply  criticised  for  having  said  in  a  public 
address  at  Amherst  College,  in  1874,  that  "  by  the  wage-fund  theory, 
whatever  is  in  wages,  is  right."    This  has  been  .referred  to  as  an  in- 
stance of  misrepresenting  an  opponent's  position,  the  more  easily  to 
refute  him.     I  confess  myself  so  dull  of  apprehension  as  now,  not- 
withstanding the  effect  of  this  castigation  in  sharpening  my  wits,  to  be 
unable  to  understand  wherein  my  proposition  is  objectionable,  even  on 
the  ground  of  my  critics.     If  the  wage-fund  comprises  all  that  can  be 
paid  in  wages  ;  if  that  fund  is  unfailingly  distributed  by  competition  ; 
if  farther  to  increase  wages  would  be  to  trench  on  capital,  and  thus  di- 
minish future  employment,  and  thus  work  permanent  injury  to  the 
laboring  classes,  together  with  the  rest  of  the  community,  why  is  it 
not  riglit  that  the  employer  should  pay  just  such  wages  as  he  does? 
Why  would  it  not  be  wrong  were  he  to  pay  more  ? 


144  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

attachments  to  home  and  life,  and  with  a  variety  of  incon- 
venient affections,  was  not  to  be  lessened  so  easily.  If  the 
workman  turnsd  him  from  words  to  blows,  and  went  out 
"  on  strike  "  with  a  view  to  better  his  condition,  it  was 
regarded  as  the  act  of  an  irrational  animal  whose  in- 
stincts, unfortunately,  were  not  politico-economical.  S  trikes 
could  not  increase  the  wage-fund ;  strikes  did  not  diminish 
the  number  of  applicants  for  employment ;  therefore,  it 
was  plain  as  a  pikestaff  that  strikes  could  not  raise  wages. 

Now,  it  may  seem  wanton  to  break  such  a  pretty  toy  as 
this ;  but  the  fact  is  that  the  wage-fund  theory  is  demon- 
strably  false,  contrary  alike  to  the  reason  of  the  case  and 
to  the  course  of  history. 

1st.  As  has  been  shown  in  a  former  chapter,  wages  are 
really  paid  out  of  current  production,  and  not  out  of  capi- 
tal, as  the  wage-fund  theory  assumes. 

(a)  Granting,  for  the  moment,  that  wages  are  wholly 
advanced  out  of  capital  to  supply  the  immediate  necessities 
of  the  laborer,  I  have,  I  think,  abundantly  proved  that 
the  two  questions,  whether  labor  shall  be  employed  at  all, 
and,  secondly,  what  wages  shall  be  paid  to  laborers  if  em- 
ployed, are  decided  by  reference  to  production  and  not    / 
to  capital.     It  is  the  prospect  of  a  profit  in  production  | 
which  determines  the  employer  to  hire  laborers ;  it  is  the  / 
anticipated  value  of  the  product  which  determines  how 
much  he  can  pay  them.     The  product,  then,  and  not  capi—! 
tal,  furnishes  at  once  the  motive  to  employment  and  the 
measure  of  wages.     If  this  be  so,  the  whole  wage-fund 
theory  falls,  for  it  is  built  on  the  assumption  that  capital 
furnishes  the  measure  of  wages  ;  that  the  wage-fund  is  no 
larger  because  capital  is  no  larger,1  and  that  the  only  way  to 


1  "  It  thus  appears  that  if  population  increases  without  any  increase 
of  capital,  wages  fall ;  and  that  if  capital  increases  without  an  increase 
of  population,  wages  rise.  It  is  evident,  also,  that  if  both  increase, 
but  one  faster  than  the  other,  the  effect  will  be  the  same  as  if  the  one 
had  not  increased  at  all,  and  the  other  had  made  an  increase  equal  to 
the  difference." — James  Mill,  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  43. 


EFFICIENCY  AFFECTS  WAGES.  145 

increase  the  aggregate  amount  which  can  be  paid  in  wages 
is  to  increase  capital. 

(£)  But  as  matter  of  fact,  wages  are  not  wholly  ad- 
vanced by  capital,  but  are  paid  out  of  the  product  of  the 
labor  for  which  wages  are  due,  as  has  been  shown  in  the 
preceding  chapter.  This  alone,  which  is  indisputable,  in- 
validates the  theory  we  are  considering. 

2d.  But  there  is  more  and  worse  to  be  said  against  the 
wage-fund.  It  will  be  noted  that  by  every  statement  of 
this  doctrine  which  we  have  quoted,  the  amount  that  can 
be  paid  in  wages  is  taken  as  fixed  irrespective  of  the  num- 
ber and  quality  of  laborers  seeking  employment.  If,  then, 
the  laborers  be  few,  wages  will  be  high ;  if  they  be  many, 
wages  will  be  low,  for  the  number  of  laborers  is  taken  as 
the  divisor  of  a  predetermined  dividend.  Let  us  consider 
this. 

(a)  This  assumption  disregards  all  those  elements, 
brought  out  to  view  in  Chapter  III.,  which  go  to  make 
up  the  efficiency  of  the  laborer.  Thus,  granted  a  certain 
store  of  provisions,  of  tools,  and  of  materials  for  produc- 
tion, sufficient,  say,  for  1000  laborers,  those  who  hold  the 
wage-fund  assert  that  the  same  rate  of  wages  (meaning 
thereby  the  actual  amounts  of  necessaries,  comforts,  and 
luxuries  received  by  the  laborer)  would  prevail  whether 
those  1000  laborers  be  Englishmen  or  East-Indians ;  or,  if 
Englishmen,  whether  thej^  be,  as  a  body,  drunken,  ignorant, 
wasteful  and  indolent,  or  possessed  of  all  the  economical 
virtues.  Ultimately,  it  is  held,  the  former  state  of  things 
would  reduce  capital,  and  hence  reduce  wages  ;  but,  in  the 
exact  present,  the  rate  of  wages  is  fixed  by  the  ratio  be- 
tween the  predetermined  wage-fund  and  the  number  of 
laborers  applying  for  employment,  and  employers  can  and 
will  pay  the  rate  so  fixed. 

On  the  contrary,  is  it  not  true  that  the  present  economi- 
cal  quality  of  the  laborers,  as  a  whole,  is  an  element  in  as- 
certaining the  aggregate  amount  that  can  now  be  paid  in 
wages ;  that  as  wages  are  paid  out  of  the  product,  and  as 


146  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

the  product  will  be  greater  or  smaller  by  reason  of  the 
workman's  sobriety,  industry,  and  intelligence,  or  his  want 
of  those  qualities,  so  wages  may  and  should  be  higher  or 
lower  accordingly  ?l 

(b)  But,  again,  since  wages  are  paid  out  of  and  measured 
by  the  product  of  industry,  and  since  productive  power 
may  be  increased  by  the  invention  of  machinery,  the  dis- 
covery of  arts,  and  the  improvement  of  processes,  without 
any  immediate  increase  of  capital,  ought  it  not  to  be  possi- 
ble that  wages  should  be  enhanced  by  such  causes,  popula- 
tion and  capital  being  assumed,  for  purposes  of  argument, 
to  stand  still  ?  Now,  the  wage-fund  advocate  concedes 
that  such  inventions  and  improvements  will  increase  capital, 
and  hence  become  the  reason  for  an  advance  in  a  more  or 
less  distant  future  ;  but  only  as  they  first  increase  capital 
can  they  increase  the  wage-fund. 

Let  us  discuss  this  point. 

We  will  take  a  community  having  a  capital  represented 
by  100,000,  a  population  represented  by  1000,  and  an  an- 
nual product  represented  by  10,000,  of  which  labor  receives 
7000.  Let  it  be  supposed  that  the  productive  power  of 
this  community  is  increased  at  once  10  per  cent  by  im- 
provements in  tools,  implements,  and  machinery  through 
all  the  departments  of  its  industry.  The  new  machinery 
is  brought  into  use.  The  capital  of  the  community  has 
not  been  thereby  increased ;  on  the  contrary,  all  such  in- 
ventions involve  a  temporary  diminution  of  capital.  The 
old  machinery  becomes  useless,  while  a  portion  of  the 
previously-circulating  capital  has  to  be  taken  for  the  new. 


1  The  view  here  taken  of  the  relation  of  the  laborer's  efficiency  to 
his  wages  substantially  coincides  with  that  presented  by  Prof.  Stanley 
Jevons  in  his  Theory  of  Political  Economy,  pp.  256-202,  and  by  Prof. 
Hearn,  of  Melbourne,  in  his  Plutology.  Mr.  Jevons  styles  his  own 
views  "  somewhat  heretical."  Mr.  J.  L.  Shadwell,  writing  in  the  "  In- 
dependent Section "  of  the  Westminster  Review  (January,  1872),  ad- 
vances "  the  efficiency  of  labor"  as  one  great  cause  for  the  variations  of 
wages,  wholly  independent  of  increase  of  population  or  of  capital. 


INVENTIONS  AFFECT  WAGES.  147 

The  capital,  whether  we  consider  the  aggregate  capital  or 
circulating  capital  only,  being  certainly  no  larger,  wages 
can  not  at  present,  the  wage-fund  advocate  declares,  be  in- 
creased, although  the  productive  power  of  the  community 
is  greater,  by  10  per  cent,  from  the  moment  the  new  ma- 
chinery begins  to  move.  The  product  is  now  11,000  ;  but 
as  capital  is  now  something  less  than  100,000,  wages  must 
even  be  something  less  than  before.  The  additional  1000 
of  product  will  therefore  go  to  the  share  of  capital,  although 
there  is  less  capital  than  before.  And  it  is  only  as  the 
capitalists,  in  their  uncontrolled  discretion,  decide  to  save 
this  addition  to  their  income,  or  a  portion  of  it,  for  future 
reproductive  investment,  instead  of  spending  it  upon  their 
own  pleasure,  that  capital  will  be  increased,  and,  with  that 
increase,  increase  of  wages  be  realized. 

Now,  to  the  contrary,  I  hold  that  the  moment  the  aggre- 
gate product  of  labor  and  capital  is  increased  by  inventions, 
which  are  a  clear  gain  of  power  for  the  benefit  of  all,1  that 
moment  a  sufficient  economical  reason  exists  for  an  ad- 
vance of  wages  in  some  degree  corresponding.  In  the 
case  supposed,  the  share  of  the  laborers  in  the  1000  gained 
might  be  found  to  be  700,  or  it  might  be  but  690,  or  it 
might  rise  to  710. 

(c)  But  the  most  signal  fallacy  of  the  wage-fund  doctrine 
remains  to  be  noted.  Waiving  now  all  consideration  of 
the  economical  quality  of  the  laborers  in  any  given  com- 
munity, and  of  the  possible  gain  in  production  through 
improvements  and  inventions,  irrespective  of  any  increase 
of  capital,  let  us  inquire  what  foundation  there  is  for  the 
assumption  that  an  increase  in  the  number  of  laborers  in- 
volves a  proportionate  reduction  in  the  amount  of  wages 
going  to  each. 

Let  us  take,  first,  a  community  which  has  not  reached 
the  condition  of  "  diminishing  returns."  The  number  of 

1  I  omit  purposely  all  consideration  of  the  limited  monopoly  of  In- 
ventions created  by  law  for  the  encouragement  of  ingenuity. 


148  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

laborers  being  taken  as  100,  let  the  amount  of  capital 
accumulated  be  represented  by  100&.  By  the  wage-fund 
theory  a  certain  rate  of  annual  wages  will  result  from  the 
ratio  between  these  quantities.  Now  let  us  suppose  that 
twenty  additional  laborers  arrive,  bringing  with  them 
capital  20a.  The  ratio  between  capital  and  population 
remains  the  same  as  before,  and  by  the  wage-fund  theory 
no  increase  of  wages  can  result.  Upon  our  principles, 
however,  an  increase  of  wages  may  result,  because  an  in- 
crease of  production  will  occur.  120  laborers  with 
capital  120#,  can  and  will  produce  more,  per  man, 
in  a  community  which  has  not  reached  the  con- 
dition of  "  diminishing  returns"  than  100  laborers  with 
capital  100&.  A  more  effective  co-operation  will  become 
possible,  a  minuter  subdivision  of  labor  will  result,  and 
the  greater  laboring  force  of  the  community  will  enable 
them  to  undertake  highly-remunerative  enterprises  to 
which  their  numbers  were  previously  inadequate.  In.  the 
same  way,  it  might  be  that  in  this  same  community  150 
laborers  with  capital  150&  would  produce  more,  per  man, 
than  the  120  laborers ;  and  that  200  laborers  only  equally 
endowed  might  produce  in  a  higher  degree,^/1  capita, 
than  150.  The  reader  is  referred  to  Chapter  Y.  for  a  fuller 
discussion  of  the  industrial  possibilities  of  such  a  commu- 
nity. Now,  through  all  this,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  our 
results  are  directly  in  contradiction  of  the  wage-fund 
theory,  which  asserts  that  wages  are  determined  by  the 
ratio  between  capital  and  population. 

Now,  if  there  is  such  power  in  association  and  in  the 
subdivision  of  employments  that  j!he  product  may  be 
largely  increased  although  the  capital,  per  man,  remains 
the  same,  the  reader  will  scarcely  question  that  the  opera- 
tion of  these  causes  might  suffice  to  keep  the  per  capita 
product  good,  though  the  capital,  per  man,  should  fall  off 
somewhat.  Yet  this  result,  again,  would  be  in  contradic- 
tion of  the  wage-fund  theory. ,  Indeed,  it  is  quite  conceiv- 
able that  a  considerable  number  of  laborers  might  be 


WAGES  NOT  A  PROBLEM  IN  DIVISION.  149 

added  to  a  community  without  bringing  with  them  any 
capital  at  all,  yet  the  per  capita  product  be  actually  in- 
creased thereby.  It  is  insight  into  this  condition  of  pro- 
duction that  gives  motive  to  the  exertions  put  forth  by 
almost  every  Western  and  Southern  State,  and  almost 
every  Western  and  Southern  county,  to  attract  immigra- 
tion. Capital  they  want,  and  they  would  much  prefer 
immigrants  with  capital ;  but  they  want  immigrants  any- 
how. These  communities  are  not  acting  foolishly.  They 
are  not  calling  in  additional  laborers  to  divide  with  them  a 
predetermined  product.  They  know  perfectly  well  that 
the  product  will  increase  as  the  producers  increase,  and 
that,  in  their  situation,  the  product  will  increase  faster 
than  the  producers ;  and  therefore  that  each  producer  may 
have  more,  and  not  less,  by  reason  of  the  arrival  of  immi- 
grants. 

Laborers  have  come  to  us  from  every  part  of  the  world, 
and  constantly  has  the  existing  body  of  laborers  been 
benefited  by  the  accessions.  Some  of  these  laborers  have 
brought  with  them  small  amounts  of  capital,  and  have 
been  all  the  more  welcome  on  that  account.  But,  however 
they  have  come,  were  it  with  but  a  bundle  on  a  stick, 
there  has  been  room  and  work  enough  for  all.  Labor  has 
had  its  periods  of  distress ;  but  these  have  been  due  to 
the  interference  of  government  with  industry,  to  false 
currencies,  to  extravagant  speculation,  or  to  other  causes, 
but  not  to  any  real  excess  of  labor. 

In  contradiction,  then,  of  the  view  that  wages  are  uni- 
versally determined  by  the  ratio  between  capital  and  pop- 
ulation, we  see  that  in  countries  which  have  not  reached 
the  condition  of  "  diminishing  returns,"  the  per-capita 
product  may  be  largely  increased  while  the  amount  of 
capital,  per  man,  remains  the  same,  and  that  it  may  even 
be  increased,  though,  of  course,  not  in  the  same  propor- 
tion, while  the  amount  of  capital,  per  man,  is  actually  re- 
duced by  the  accession  of  new  bodies  of  laborers  destitute 
of  accumulations. 


150  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

But  suppose  now  that  the  condition  of  "diminish- 
ing returns"  isrfeached ;  that  cthe  accessions  to  population 
have  continued  until  all  the  eligible  land  is  taken  up.  and 
the  first  course  of  simple  improvements  made.  If  further 
accessions  are  made,  we  may  then  expect  to  see  the  wages 
of  labor  fall,  not  because  there  is  a  greater  number  to  divide 
among  them  a  predetermined  dividend,  but  because  the 
annual  product  is  not  increased  proportionally  to  the  in- 
crease of  labor.  Nature  fails  to  respond  to  fresh  applica- 
tions with  its  former  generosity.  Under  this  condition, 
five  men  now  produce,  as  they  always  must  produce,  more 
than  four,  but  not  one  fourth  as  much  more.  The  five 
must,  therefore,  submit  to  receive  each  less  than  the  four 
had  received,  that  is,  the  wages  of  labor  must  fall.  They 
fall  because  production  has  sustained  a  check,  through  the 
limitations  of  natural  agents. 

But  this  process  of  reduction  in  wages  may,  and  gene- 
rally will,  proceed  slowly,  first,  because  for  a  long  time 
the  labor  of  the  new-comer,  while  it  will  not  be  quite  as 
productive  as  was  that  of  the  community  upon  the  average 
previous  to  his  arrival,  will  yet  not  fall  far  short  of  it, 
nature  giving  long  warning  against  an  undue  increase  of 
population,  and  having  great  patience  with  men ;  and, 
secondly,  because  the  limits  of  production  are  being  con- 
stantly pushed  backward  by  the  discovery  of  new  re- 
sources, by  increased  economy  of  labor,  by  improvements 
of  method,  by  the  application  of  distinctly  new  arts,  by 
the  invention  of  machinery,  and  by  the  utilization  of 
waste.  But  through  all  these  the  tendency  now  is  to 
"  diminishing  returns,"  and  hence  to  lower  wages. 

Under  these  conditions,  then,  is  the  wage-fund  theory 
true  ?  "We  answer  with  confidence  that  this  theory  can 
never  be  true,  for  it  excludes  altogether  the  contribution 
which  the  new-comer,  the  additional  laborer,  makes  to 
the  production  of  the  community  in  which  he  is  so  un- 
welcome an  arrival.  The  wage-fund  doctrine  regards  him 
as  a  pure  addition  to  the  divisor,  without  recognizing  the 


FALLACY  OF  THE  WAGE-FUND.  151 

fact  that  his  labor  must  also  add  something  to  the  divi- 
dend. He  no  longer  contributes  more,  far  more  to  pro- 
duction than  the  cost  of  his  own  subsistence,  as  in  an  ad- 
vancing state  of  industry,  before  natural  agents  are  fully 
occupied  and  employed.  He  no  longer  contributes  as 
much  as  he  requires.  But  he  still  contributes  something, 
and  that  something,  however  small  it  may  be,  helps  to 
swell  the  amount  that  can  be  paid  in  wages.1 

1  See  the  remarks  by  Prof.  Senior  on  the  possibilities^  English 
agriculture,  quoted  on  p.  97. 


PART  II. 


DISTRIBUTION 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  DISTRIBUTION:    COMPETITION:    THE   DIFFU- 
SION THEORY:  THE  ECONOMICAL  HARMONIES. 

HAVING  discussed  much  at  length  certain  principles  in 
the  production  of  wealth,  in  that  connection  showing  the 
falsity  of  the  current  doctrine  of  a  wages-fund,  we  come 
now  to  the  problem  of  distribution,  wherein  we  may  look 
to  find  the  true  philosophy  of  wages. 

But  is  there  a  problem  of  distribution  ?  Can  there  be 
a  philosophy  of  wages  ?  Certainly  if  we  exclude  the  ques- 
tion of  rent,  the  orthodox1  economists  have  scarcely  rec- 
ognized a  problem  of  distribution,  and  were  it  not  for  the 
space  taken  for  refuting  the  opinions  of  heretical  writers, 
what  the  text  books  have  to  say  on  the  subject  of  wages 
would  be  very  little.  How,  indeed,  can  there  be  a  philoso- 
phy of  wages,  when  the  doctrine  of  a  wages-fund  prevails  ? 
If  the  question  of  wages  is  simply  a  question  in  long-divis- 
ion, what  need  to  take  much  space  to  illustrate  the  opera- 
tions of  "  one  of  the  four  fundamental  rules  of  arithmetic."  2 
Population  being  given,  there  is  no  philosophy  of  wages. 
The  whole  question  of  the  well-being  of  the  laboring-class 
is,  then,  reduced  to  a  question  of  population.  Here  phil- 
osophy becomes  possible ;  but  the  question  of  population 
does  not  belong  in  the  department  of  distribution  at  all. 

1  "  L'economie  politique  que  j'appellerais  volontiers  orthodoxe.  .  . 
eemblait  etre  definitivement  constituee,  Comme  1'eglise  de  Rome,  elle 
avait  son  Credo/'— E.  de  Laveleye,  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  July  15 
1875.  •  See  p.  143. 


156  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

But  even  the  wage-fund  doctrine  aside,  the  economists 
of  the  Manchester  School  have  not  been  disposed  to  regard 
the  problem  of  distribution,  the  question  of  rent  excepted, 
as  one  of  much  urgency  or  difficulty.  They  have  been  of 
the  opinion  expressed  by  Chevalier,  thirty-five  years  ago, 
that  this  department  of  political  economy  is  inferior  in 
interest  and  importance  to  that  of  production.1  This  has 
not  been  from  a  disposition  to  disregard  the  effects  on 
human  happiness,  and  the  strength  and  stability  of  the 
state,  wrought  by  a  good  or  an  ill  distribution  of  the  pro- 
ducts of  industry ;  but  from  a  belief  in  the  absolute  suffi- 
ciency of  economical  forces,  in  a  state  of  industrial  free- 
dom, to  diffuse  all  burdens  and  all  benefits  alike,  to  the 
highest  advantage  of  the  industrial  community.  Laissez 
faire :  let  these  principles  work  unhindered,  has  hence  come 
to  contain  pretty  much  the  whole  theory  of  distribution  as 
held  by  the  writers  of  this  school.  To  such  it  can  only  be 
a  matter  of  curious  interest,  so  far  as  they  are  concerned 
as  political  economists,  what  are  the  facts  of  the  distribu- 
tion of  wealth  at  any  given  time,  or  what  the  moral  and 
social  condition  of  any  single  class  of  the  community.  If 
things  are  wrong,  they  need  only  to  be  let  to  work  them- 
selves right,  under  the  impulsion  of  purely  economical 
forces ;  and  such  forces  are  constantly  operating  for  the 
redress  of  grievances,  and  the  repair  of  inequalities.  If 
aught  is  wrong  at  present,  it  is  simply  because  the  free 
play  of  economic  forces  has  been  hindered  by  arbitrary 
enactment,  or  illegal  violence  in  the  past :  the  one  thing 
required  to  bring  about  industrial  relief  is  industrial  free- 
dom. So  completely  satisfied  are  the  writers  of  this  school 

1  "  Certes,  le  partage  des  produits  du  travail  est  digne  de  toute  la 
Bollicitude  de  quiconque  a  de  1'intelligence  et  du  coeur.  Cependant, 
ette  est  moins  urgente  d  discuter,  et  pratiquement  elle  sera  Uen  moina 
embarrassante  que  celle  de  I'accroisement  harmonique  et  regulier  da 
la  production." — Troisieme  discours  d'Ouverture  du  cours  de  I'anntie, 
1841-2. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  DISTRIBUTION.  151 

with  the  sufficiency  of  the  force  they  invoke  to  secure  a 
right  distribution,  that  they  refuse  to  make  political  free- 
dom a  condition,1  necessary  or  even  important,  for  the 
successful  operation  of  that  force.  The  question  of  wages 
is  no  different  in  the  United  States  from  what  it  is  in 
Russia,  by  reason  of  differences  in  the  political  institutions 
of  those  countries.  It  differs  nothing  in  Austria  from 
what  it  is  in  Prussia,  by  reason  of  the  wide  difference  in 
popular  intelligence  existing  between  those  countries. 
The  ballot  can  do  nothing  to  enhance  wages :  social  oppor- 
tunities can  do  nothing,  except  as  they  operate  in  restraint 
of  population;  sympathy  and  respect  for  labor  can  do 
nothing.  The  economical  force  is  all-sufficient,  granted 
only  a  state  of  industrial  freedom. 

COMPETITION. 

Competition  it  is,  and  competition  alone,  to  which  the 
economist  looks  to  accomplish  the  distribution  of  the  pro- 
ducts of  industry.  Competition  expresses  the  desire  and 
the  effort  of  the  buyer  to  buy  as  cheaply,  and  of  the  seller  to 
sell  as  dearly  ;  of  the  one  to  give  as  little,  and  of  the  other 
to  get  as  much,  as  he  can ;  and  inasmuch  as  every  man  is 
at  once  2  buyer  and  seller,  we  say  he  gives  as  little  and  gets 
as  much  as  the  existing  conditions  of  industry  allow. 
Competition  involves,  therefore,  we  see,  a  free,  easy  and 

1  Let  me  not  seem,  by  omission,  to   do   injustice.    Many  of  the 
writers  of  this  school  have  recognized,  in  the  fullest  manner,  not  only 
the  moral  and  social,  but  also  the  industrial,  advantages  of  education 
and  political  freedom,  in  increasing  the  productive  power  of  the  work- 
man ;  but  for  the  distribution  of  wealth,  they  hold  strictly  economical 
forces  to  be  sufficient. 

2  No  man    can  buy  anything,   unless  at  the  same  time,  he  sells 
something  ;  else  he  does  not  buy  the  thing  he  gets ;  it  is  given  to  him. 
When  a  man  buys  a  pound  of  meat  he  sells  a  shilling,  more  or  less. 
The  butcher  may  say,  I  will  send  home  the  meat  now,  and  you  may 
hand  in  the  shilling  at  the  end  of  the  week,  or  of  the  month ;  but  the 
credit  given  does  not  alter  the  substantial  relations  of  the  parties  to 
the  transaction. 


r 


158  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

sure  resort  to  the  best  market,  whatever  be  the  thing  that 
is  to  be  bought  or  sold. 

If  competition  be  perfect,  no  question  can  be  made  of 
its  result  in  an  equable  division  of  all  burdens  and  diffu- 
sion of  all  benefits  throughout  the  industrial  society. 
Let  us  consider  the  laborers  and  the  employers  of  labor  in 
a  state  of  active  competition.  Each  laborer  will  sell  hia 
labor  at  the  highest  price  which  any  employer  can  afford 
to  give,  since  the  employers  are  in  competition  among 
themselves  for  labor.  Each  employer  will  get  his  labor  at 
the  lowest  price  at  which  any  laborer l  can  afford  to  sell 
it,  since  the  laborers  are  in  competition  among  themselves 
for  employment.  The  lowest  price  at  which  any  laborer 
will  sell  his  labor  is  thus  the  highest  price  which  any 
employer  can  afford  to  pay.  If  we  suppose  the  rate  of 
wages  to  any  single  laborer  to  be  reduced,  be  it  ever  so  lit- 
tle, below  the  highest  price  which  any  employer  can  afford 
to  pay,  the  competition  among  employers  for  the  extra 
profit  thus  offered  will  speedily  reduce  that  margin  to  the 
minimum.  If  again  we  suppose  the  wages  obtained  by  a 
single  laborer  to  be  above  the  average  of  his  class,  the 
resort  of  his  fellows  to  that  better  market 2  will  instantly 
afford  his  individual  employer  all  the  labor  he  requires 
at  the  usual  rate.  So  much  for  the  reduction  or  elevation 
of  the  wages  of  a  single  laborer  below  or  above  the  stand- 
ard ;  but  if  we  suppose  that  standard  to  be  lowered,  and 
the  wages  of  the  whole  body  of  laborers  to  be  reduced,  we 
shall  then  find  a  like  satisfactory  result  wrought  out  in 
one  of  two  ways;  either  the  employers,  getting  their 
labor  for  less,  will  sell  their  products  at  correspondingly 
reduced  prices,  and  the  laborers  will  thus,  as  consum- 

1  We  here  assume  the  industrial  quality  of  all  laborers  to  be  the 
lame,  and  all  employers  to  stand  on  the  same  footing  as  regards  busi- 
ness capacity  and  credit. 

•  "  Every  scene  of  competition  is  called  a  market." — F.  W.  New 
man,  Lectures  on  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  5. 


COMPETITION.  10g 

ers,1  make  good  their  nominal  loss  as  producers,  or,  if  prices 
be  maintained,  the  enhanced  profit  thus  afforded  on  each 
pound,  bushel  or  yard  of  the  product  will  incite  each 
individual  employer  to  produce  all  he  can,  and  for  this 
purpose  to  employ  all  the  labor  he  can ;  and  employers 
will  thus  be  brought  to  bid  against  each  other  until  the 
margin  of  extra  profit  wholly  disappears,  and  the  lowest 
price  at  which  any  laborer  will  sell  his  labor  will  thus 
again  become  the  highest  which  any  employer  can  afford 
to  pay.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  suppose  the  standard  of 
wages  to  be  raised  and  the  body  of  laborers  to  receive  a 
larger  compensation,  then  it  will  follow  from  the  action 
of  competition,  that  either  prices  will  be  raised  corre- 
spondingly and  the  laborers  lose  as  consumers  what  they 
have  nominally  gained  as  producers,  or,  prices  remaining 
the  same,  the  employers  will  find  their  profits  trenched 
upon,  and  this,  diminishing  the  motive  to  production,  will 
diminish  the  employment  offered,  which  will  induce  com- 
petition among  the  workmen  for  employment,  which  will 
restore  the  standard  of  wages.  \ 

The  above  account  will  hold  good  of  laborers  and  em- 
ployers found  in  the  same  locality  and  engaged  in 
the  same  occupation.  But  if  we  assume  laborers  and 
employers  to  be  dispersed  among  different  localities  and 
occupations,  precisely  the  same  result  would,  in  a  con- 
dition of  absolute  competition,  be  effected  without  loss 
and  without  delay.  Laborers  would  seek  employers  or 
employers  laborers,  with  perfect  facility,  across  the  divid- 
ing lines,  whether  territorial  or  industrial.  All  inequal- 
ities of  condition  would  thus  be  immediately  reduced. 
The  effort  of  each  to  get  the  most  possible  for  himself 

1  "  For  this  class  (the  proletaires)  as  for  all,  the  operation  of  com. 
petition  is  two-fold.  They  feel  it  both  as  buyers,  and  as  sellers  of 
services."— Bastiat,  "  Harmonies  of  Pol.  Econ.,"  p.  280.  Doubtless  j 
but  do  they  feel  it  equally,  in  their  two  capacities  ?  For  what  Prof . 
Cairnee  calls  "  the  excessive  friction"  of  retail  trade,  see  p.  313-5. 


160  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

would  simply  result,  with  equal  strength  and  opportuni- 
ties, in  giving  the  same  to  all. 

By  the  operation  of  the  same  principle,  any  burden — 
say,  a  tax — imposed  arbitrarily  upon  any  class,  whether 
of  persons,  of  industrial  processes,  or  of  products,  is  distri- 
buted equally  over  the  whole  community.  That  burden, 
wherever  first  imposed,  becomes  an  element  in  determin- 
ing the  actual  net  advantage  enjoyed  in  their  place  by 
the  class  of  persons,  upon  whom,  or  upon  whose  processes, 
or  upon  whose  products,  the  burden  is  laid.  The  dimi- 
nution thus  effected  in  their  substantial  remuneration, 
will  either  cause  their  products  to  rise  in  price,  while  the 
same  quantity  is  produced  by  the  same  number  of  laborers 
(which  may  be  the  case  if  the  products  are  of  prime 
importance  or  necessity)  ;  or  laborers  and  employers  will 
leave  these  avocations  until  the  prices  of  their  products, 
thus  diminished  in  quantity,  are  raised  by  scarcity  to  a 
point  which  will  afford  wages  to  laborers  and  profits  to  em- 
ployers equivalent,  after  full  account  be  had  of  the  excep- 
tional burden,  to  those  enjoyed  in  other  departments  of 
production.  This  is  the  reasoning  of  those  who  hold  the 
diffusion  theory  of  taxation. 

Such  is  the  operation  of  unhindered  competition, 
achieving  a  beneficent  distribution  of  the  products  of 
industry,  equalizing  all  burdens  and  all  benefits  through- 
out the  industrial  community.  These  are  the  Economical 
Harmonies  celebrated  by  Bastiat.  Of  course  no  one  ever 
supposed  that  competition  was  perfect  in  any  place,  or  in 
any  department  of  human  activity;  but  the  political 
economists  of  the  Manchester  School  have  felt  themselves 
at  liberty  to  treat  the  questions  of  distribution  precisely 
as  if  competition  were  perfect,  regarding  the  failures  as  so 
far  exceptional  as  not  to  impair  the  substantial  validity 
of  practical  conclusions  based  on  the  assumption  of  uni- 
versal competition.  Our  further  course  will  lead  us  to 
investigate  this  assumption  of  a  competition  so  general 


THE  MANCHESTER  SCHOOL.  161 

that  the  exceptions  thereto  may  for  practical  purposes  be 
disregarded  ;  and  if  we  find  the  exceptions  numerous  and 
important,  to  inquire  how  far  the  conclusions  based  on 
competition  alone  require  modification  to  meet  the  condi- 
tions disclosed. — But  first,  of  a  term  just  used.  What  is 
THE  MANCHESTER  SCHOOL  OF  POLITICAL  ECONOMY  ? 

It  is  usually  spoken  of  as  the  school  of  Free  Traders ; l 
but  this,  in  my  estimation,  does  not  present  the  real  char- 
acteristic of  the  class  of  writers  included  by  the  term. 
There  were  Free-traders  before  Manchester ;  there  are 
Free-traders  who  are  not  of  Manchester. 

I  should  rather  define  the  Manchester  school  to  consist 
of  those  free  traders  who  carry  into  the  department  of 
Distribution,  that  assumption  of  the  economical  sufficiency 
of  competition  which  the  whole  body  of  free-traders  accept 
when  dealing  with  the  questions  of  Exchange  ;  who  fail  to 
recognize  any  differences  between  services  and  commodities, 
between  men  and  merchandise,  which  require  them  to  modi- 
fy their  doctrine  of  laissez  faire,  looking  on  a  Manchester 
spinner  as  possessing  the  same  mobility  economically,  as 
being  under  the  same  complete  subjection  to  the  impulses  of 
pecuniary  interest,  as  a  bale  of  Manchester  cottons  on  the 
wharf,  free  to  go  to  India  or  Iceland  as  the  difference  of  a 
penny  in  the  price  offered  may  determine ;  free-traders, 
who,  to  come  down  to  single  practical  questions,  object  to 
laws  against  truck 2  as  an  interference  with  the  freedom 
of  contract ;  who  oppose  exceptional  legislation  respecting  8 
the  employment  of  women  under  ground  in  mines  and  at 

1  Le  point  de  depart  des  Katheder-socialisten  est  entierement  different 
de  celui  des  economistes  orthodoxes,  qu'ils  designent  sous  le  nom  de 
Mancliester-thum,  ou  aecte  de  Manchester,  parce  que  c'est  en  effet, 
I'ecole  des  litres  echangistes  qui  a  expose  avec  plus  de  logique  les  dog- 
mes  da  Credo  ancien." — Laveleye.— Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  15 
July,  1875. 

*  See  this  term  defined  and  truck  practices  described,  pp.  324-42. 

•  Fawcett,  Speeches,  p.  180. 


163  THE  WAGES   QUESTION. 

factory  labor  during  pregnancy  and  for  the  period  im- 
mediately succeeding  confinement,  on  the  ground  that  such 
matters  should  be  regulated  by  the  interest  of  the  parties 
thereto ;  who,  while  perhaps  approving,  on  social  consid- 
erations, laws  regulating  the  employment  of  children  in 
mines  and  factories,1  yet  deny  that  such  regulations 
have  any  economical  justification,  holding  that  self-interest 
is  here,  again,  a  sufficient  guide ;  who  object  to  laws  01 
compulsory  rules  respecting  apprenticeship,  or  admission 
to  the  professions,  to  the  governmental  regulation  or  in- 
spection of  industrial  operations,  and  to  any  and  all  acts  of 
the  state  directed  to  the  promotion  of  prudence  arid  fru- 
gality on  the  part  of  the  working  classes.  It  was  to  the 
effects  of  such  teaching  that  Prof.  Cairn  es  referred  when  he 
said  :  "  Laissez  faire,  freedom  of  contract,  and  phrases  of 
like  import,  have  of  late  become  somewhat  of  bugbears, 
with  a  large  number  of  people.  It  is  enough  to  mention 
them  to  discredit  by  anticipation  the  most  useful  practical 
scheme."  2 

But  it  may  be  here  asked,  are  not  the  Manchester  econ- 
omists merely  more  consistent  and  thorough  than  those  who 
stop  short  in  their  advocacy  of  freedom  from  legal  restraints 
when  they  leave  the  department  of  exchange  ;  does  it  not 
amount  to  this,  that  the  Manchesterians  stick  to  their 
principles,  while  others  do  not  ?  It  is  to  be  in  a  position  to 
meet  this  question  that  I  have  stated  the  theory  of  com- 
petition so  much  at  length  ;  and  I  now  answer,  no  ques- 
tion of  principle  is  involved,  but  only  a  question  of  fact.  Ed 
one  will  deny  that  if  competition  be  perfect,  a  right  distri 
bution  will  be  effected  by  its  agency,  but  on  the  other  hand 
no  one  can  claim  that  any  such  assurance  exists  if  com- 
petition be  seriously  impaired.  If  laborers  and  employers 

i  The  Factory  Act  of  1844  was  passed  against  the  opposition  of 
the  majority  of  English  economists  in  Parliament  and  out. 
'  Essays  in  Pol.  Econ.  p.  251. 


LA188EZ  FAIRE  A  PRACTICAL  RULE.  163 

do  not  in  fact,1  whatever  the  cause,  resort  to  the  best  market, 
then  injuries  may  be  inflicted  on  labor  or  on  capital,  and 
no  economical  principle  whatever  will  operate  to  secure 
redress.  The  entire  justification  for  laissez  faire  is  found 
in  an  assumed  sufficiency  of  the  individual  motive-force  to 
reach  the  best  market.  With  immobility,  total  or  partial, 
there  is  no  certainty,  or  probability,  of  an  equalization 
of  burdens  and  benefits,  or  of  the  propagation,  without 
delay  or  loss,  of  any  economical  impulse  whatever. 

Competition,  to  have  the  beneficent  effects  which  have 
been  ascribed  to  it,  must  be  all-pervading  and  unremitting ; 
like  the  pressure  of  the  atmosphere  of  which  we  are  happily 
unconscious  because  it  is  all  the  while  equal  within  and 
without  us,  above  and  below  us.  "Were  that  pressure  to  be 
made  unequal,  its  effects  would  instantly  become  crashing 
and  destructive.  So  it  is  with  competition ;  when  it  becomes 
unequal,  when  the  ability  of  one  industrial  class  to  respond 
to  the  impulses  of  self-interest  is  seriously  reduced  by  igno- 
rance, poverty,  or  whatever  cause,  while  the  classes  with 
which  it  is  to  divide  the  product  of  industry,  are  active, 
alert,  mobile  in  a  high  degree,  the  most  mischievous 
effects  may  be  experienced. 

Free  traders,  therefore,  who  decline  to  carry  the  rule  of 
laissez  faire  into  the  department  of  distribution,  are  not 
dodging  their  principles.  They  deny  that  the  condition 
which  alone  justifies  that  rule,  exists  in  this  department. 
With  respect  to  merchandise,  destitute  alike  of  sympa- 
thies and  antipathies,  competition  is  so  far  perfect  that 
it  may  be  reasoned  upon  as  if  no  obstruction  to  exchange 
existed.  The  one  additional  penny  of  profit  will  send  the 
bale  of  goods  east  or  west,  north  or  south,  to  kinsman  or 
to  stranger,  to  black  man  or  white,  with  absolute  indiffer- 
ence. But  with  that  strange  bundle  of  "  apathies,  sympa- 
thies and  antipathies"2  called  man,  bound  by  manifold 

1  The  mobility  of  labor  forms  the  subject  of  Chap.  XL 
1  Charles  Lamb — Essays  of  Elia. 


164  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

strong  attachments  to  place  and  scene,  to  home  and  friends, 
weighted  with  daily  burdens,  almost  or  quite  to  the  limit 
of  his  strength,  beset  with  reasonable  and  with  supersti- 
tious fears,  a  prompt  resort  to  the  best  market  must  so 
evidently  be  a  matter  of  great  uncertainty,  that  no  econo- 
mist can  justly  be  accused  of  abandoning  his  principles 
who  refuses  to  trust  wholly  to  the  individual  impulse  for 
the  right  distribution  of  the  products  of  industry.  The 
question  of  a  competition  sufficient  or  insufficient  to  this 
end,  is  a  question  of  fact.  And  it  is  important  to  be  borne 
in  mind  that  the  obstructions  to  competition  which  defeat  a 
right  distribution,  are  not  physical  merely,  or  mainly,  but 
moral ;  ignorance,  superstition,  timidity,  procrastination, 
mental  inertia,  love  of  country,  love  of  home,  love  of 
friends.  So  much  for  the  obstructions  to  competition, 
on  the  side  of  the  working  classes.  But  it  is  equally  impor- 
tant to  note  that  a  further  effect  prejudicial  to  them  may 
be  produced  by  the  greed  of  employers  counteracting  a 
true  regard  for  their  own  self-interest.  The  theory  of 
competition  assumes  that  the  employer  in  seeking  his  own 
interests  will  become  the  conservator  of  the  interests  of 
the  laborer,  there  being  a  true  harmony  of  interests  be- 
tween them.  This  may  be  so,  as  Prof.  Cairnes  has  noted, 
with  interests  as  they  really  exist,  and  as  they  would  be 
seen  by  an  enlightened  eye.  But  it  does  not  follow  that 
the  employer's  interest,  as  he  may  regard  it,  coincides  with 
the  interests  of  those  dependent  on  him  for  .employment. 
"  This  chasm  in  the  argument  of  the  laissez  faire  school 
has  never  been  bridged.  The  advocates  of  the  doctrine 
shut  their  eyes  and  leap  over  it."  1 


But  here  we  have  to  meet  the  further  questions  :  grant- 
*ng  that  competition  is  in  fact  impaired   to  an  extent 

1  Essajs  in  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  24G. 


IMPERFECT  COMPETITION.  1M 

which  allows  serious  and  lamentable  injury  to  result  in  the 
distribution  of  the  products  of  industry,  from  the  inability 
of  persons  and  classes  to  resort  to  their  best  market,  is  it 
the  part  of  the  legislator  or  of  the  economist  to  do  or  to 
speak  otherwise  than  as  if  competition  were  perfect  ?  Are 
we  not  to  accept  competition,  as  it  is,  for  what  it  can  now 
do ;  and  wait  for  the  action  of  economical  forces  in  gradu- 
ally perfecting  it  ?  Does  not  the  existence  of  competition, 
however  much  impaired,  establish  a  steady  tendency  which 
must  sooner  or  later  wear  out  the  obstructions  which  are 
admitted  to  beset  the  resort  to  the  best  market,  on  the  part 
of  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  the  industrial  community  ? 
And  meanwhile,  to  repeat,  should  we  argue  or  act  other- 
wise than  as  if  competition  were  complete  ? 
To  these  questions  I  have  to  answer  as  follows : 

1.  The  reader  is  referred  to  what  has  been  said  in  Chap- 
ter IY.  on  the  degradation  of  labor :  the  breaking  down  of 
the  laboring  population  through  industrial  distress  and  dis- 
aster.    It  was  there  sought  to  be  shown,  that  if  the  blow, 
in  its  suddenness  or  its  severity,  bears  more  than  a  certain 
ratio  to  the  power  of  resistance,  the  chances  are  many, 
human  nature  being  what  it  is,  that  the  wages  class  will 
succumb,  that  is,  that  they  will  accept  the  harder  terms 
imposed  upon  them  ;  and,  on  the  one  hand,  through  a  less 
ample  or  nourishing  diet  and  meaner  conditions,  and  on 
the  other,  through  a  loss  of  self-respect  and  perhaps  the 
contracting   of  distinctly  bad   habits,  they   will   become 
unable  to  render  the  same  amount  and  quality  of  service 
as  before.     This  result  being  reached,  not  only  is  there 
not  a   tendency  in  any  economical  forces  to  repair  the 
mischief,  but  even  the  occurrence  of  better  times  and  new 
opportunities,  if  brought  about  from  the  outside  (as  for 
example,  by  the  discovery  of  new  resources  in  nature,  or 
new  powers  in  art),  would  not  serve  to  restore  the  shattered 
industrial  manhood. 

2.  Such  disasters  aside,  the  tendency  of  purely  econom- 


166  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

ical  forces  is  continually  to  aggravate  the  disadvantages 
from  which  any  person  or  class  may  suffer.  The  fact  ot 
being  worsted  in  one  conflict  is  an  ill  preparative  for 
another  encounter.  Every  gain  which  one  party  makes 
at  the  expense  of  another,  furnishes  the  sinews  of  war  for 
further  aggressions ;  every  loss  which  one  person  or  class 
of  persons  sustains  in  the  competitions  of  industry,  weak- 
ens the  capability  for  future  resistance.  This  principle 
applies  with  increasing  force  as  men  sink  in  the  industrial 
scale.  Emphatically  is  it  true  that  the  curse  of  the  poor 
is  their  poverty.  Cheated  in  quantity,  quality  and  price l 
in  whatever  they  purchase,  they  are  notoriously  unable 
to  get  as  much,  proportionally,  for  their  little,  as  the  rich 
for  their  larger  means.  Economically  speaking,  this 
must  ever  remain  true,  and  operate  with  increasing  powei 
Moral  forces  may  indeed  enter  to  restore  the  equilibrium  ; 
the  liberality  of  nature  may  afford  to  the  weaker  class  a 
margin  sufficient  for  them  to  long  maintain  themselves ; 
the  discovery  of  new  arts  and  new  resources  may  open  up 
fresh  opportunities  for  retrieving  loss ;  but,  through  all,  it 
cannot  be  controverted  that  the  tendency  of  purely  eco- 
nomical forces  is  to  widen  the  differences  existing  in  the 
constitution  of  industrial  society,  and  to  subject  any  and 
every  person  and  class  of  persons  who  may,  from  any 
cause,  be  at  disadvantage  in  respect  to  selling  his  or  their 
service  or  product,  to  a  constantly  increasing  burden. 

3.  Progress  toward  freedom  is  not  necessarily  accom- 
plished by  indiscriminately  throwing  off  restraints, 
either  in  the  political  or  the  industrial3  body.  True,  men 

1  Count  Rumford's  Essays  contain  much  interesting  matter  in 
illustration  of  the  losses  which  the  working  classes  suffer  in  the  do- 
mestic use  of  what  they  have  purchased,  from  the  want  of  simple  and 
elementary  apparatus  for  cooking,  storing,  etc. 

8  Thus,  I  cannot  hesitate  to  assent  to  the  opinion  of  M.  Say,  that 
fche  breaking  down  of  all  the  fraternities  in  Paris,  after  the  Revolution 
of  1830,  and  the  sudden  rush,  without  order  or  discretion,  of  a  mob  ol 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  DISTRIBUTION.  167 

only  learn  to  swim  by  going  into  the  water ;  only  make 
their  eyes  of  use  by  going  into  the  light ;  but,  out  of 
regard  to  human  weakness,  exposure  to  either  element 
should  be  conducted  with  measure,  and  in  order.  While 
progress  toward  freedom  is  to  be  made  by  the  removal  of 
industrial  restrictions,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  removal 
of  any  specific  restriction  at  any  given  time,  conduces  to 
such  progress.  The  restriction  may  be,  in  the  situation 
existing,  correspondent  to  an  infirmity  which  cannot  so 
summarily  be  done  away.  A  crutch  operates  by  restraint 
only  ;  but  it  is  a  restraint  which  prevents  a  lame  man  from 
falling  to  the  ground,  whence  he  might  have  no  strength 
to  raise  himself  again ;  while,  if  artificially  sustained,  he 
may  be  able  to  achieve  a  very  considerable  freedom  of 
movement  and  of  action.  A  law  prohibiting  a  child  under 
eight  years  to  work  in  a  factory,  operates  by  restraint  only  ; 
but  it  is  a  restraint  upon  parental  folly  or  greed,  which  may 
prevent  a  horrible  waste  of  physical  force,  and  cause  a 
larger  amount  of  actual  labor  to  be  accomplished  during 
the  entire  term  of  life,  than  would  be  effected  were  the 
child  to  be  stunted  by  premature  exposure  and  hardship. 
For  this  reason  I  believe,  with  Mr.  Homer,  that  "  the 
interposition  of  the  legislature  in  behalf  of  children,  is 
justified  by  the  most  cold  and  severe  principles  of  political 
economy."  1 

labor  into  trades  immemorially  restricted,  was  the  cause  of  great 
disaster  in  1831 ;  that  it  would  have  been  better,  both  for  the  trades 
and  for  the  mass  of  outside  labor,  had  the  barriers  been  removed  more 
gradually. 

1  "  Employment  of  children  in  factories,"  p.  15.  Mr.  Homer,  who 
was  government  inspector  of  factories,  states  that  in  the  lace  mills  of 
Nottingham,  children,  9  to  15  years  of  age,  were  frequently  employed 
20  hours  on  a  stretch,  from  4  A.M.  to  12  at  night,  [p.  14.]  He  quotes  a 
witness  who  testified  that  "  being  frequently  detained  in  his  counting, 
house  late  at  night,  till  12  or  1  o'clock,  he  has  often,  in  going  home,  in 
the  depth  of  winter,  met  mothers  taking  their  children  to  the  neigh- 
boring print-works,  the  children  crying."  [p.  123.] 

Dr.  Villerme,  in  his  memorable  report  to  the  French  Academy 


168  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 


Just  how  much  force,  on  purely  economical  principles, 
has  the  objection  urged  against  many  proposed  measures, 
that  they  are  in  violation  of  the  freedom  of  contract  ?  Le* 
us  candidly  but  searchingly  consider  this  question.  What 
is  the  authority  of  laissez  faire *  when  levelled  against  a 
factory  act,  or  a  proposition  to  restrain  truck  ?  Laws 
in  restraint  of  trade,  or  interfering  with  the  times  and 
methods  of  employment,  with  wages  and  prices,  are  not 
mischievous  because  they  violate  a  theoretical  self-suffi- 
ciency of  labor,  but  because  they  effect  a  certain  actual 
result.  What  is  that  result  ?  They  diminish  mobility, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  prime  condition  of  compe- 
tition, while  competition  affords  the  only  security  the 
laborer  can  have  that  he  will  get  the  utmost  possible  for  his 
service.  The  mischief  of  such  laws  is  simply  and  solely 
that  they  are  obstructive.  Here,  then,  and  not  in  the 
shibboleth,  laissez  faire,  laissez  passer,  we  have  the  true 
test  of  the  expediency  of  a  proposed  regulation  of  indus- 
try or  trade.  Does  it  practically  obstruct  movement  ? 

used  the  following  language  in  writing  of  the  factory  laborers  of 
Alsace  :  "  The  rents  in  the  manufacturing  towns  and  villages  imme- 
diately adjoining,  are  so  high  that  they  are  often  obliged  to  live  at  the 
distance  of  a  league  and  even  a  league  and  a  half.  The  poor  children, 
many  of  whom  are  scarcely  seven  years  old,  and  some  even  younger, 
have  to  take  from  their  sleep  and  their  meal-hours,  whatever  is  required 
to  traverse  that  long  and  weary  road,  in  the  morning  to  get  to  the 

factory,  in  the  evening  to  get  home To  judge  how  excessive  is 

the  labor  of  children  in  the  factories,  one  has  only  to  recollect  that  it 
is  unlawful  to  employ  galley-slaves  more  than  12  hours  a  day,  and  these 
12  must  be  broken  by  two  hours  for  meals,  reducing  the  actual  labor 
to  ten  hours  a  day  ;  while  the  young  people  of  whom  I  speak  have  to 
toil  13  hours,  and  sometimes  13^,  independent  of  their  meal  times." 

*  "So  understood,  I  hold  it  to  be  a  pretentious  sophism,  destitute  of 
foundation  in  nature  and  fact,  and  rapidly  becoming  an  obstruction 
and  nuisance  in  public  affairs."— J.  B.  Cairnes'  Essaya  in  Pol.  Econ.. 
p.  252. 


LA18SEZ  FAIRS.  16| 

But  is  it  said :  every  restriction  or  regulation  is  in  soxne 
degree,  obstructive  ?  Right  and  wrong,  at  once.  Restric- 
tion and  regulation  are  obstructive  as  against  a  pre-existing 
condition  of  perfect  practical  freedom.  But  perfect  free- 
dom obtains  in  nothing  human.  There  are  obstructions 
on  every  hand,  not  physical  only,  but  also  intellectual  and 
moral.  May  not  a  regulative  act  well  conceived  to  remove 
certain  moral  and  intellectual  obstacles  to  free  action,  have 
the  effect  to  promote,  not  retard,  industrial  movement  ? 

For  instance  :  take  the  transfer  of  real  estate.  An  act 
for  the  registration  of  ownership  is  restrictive  upon 
transfers;  yet  can  any  one  doubt  that  judicious  provis- 
ions for  registration,  instead  of  retarding  transfers  of  land 
and  buildings,  do  in  fact,  in  the  most  important  degree, 
promote  them  ?  The  compliance  with  the  requirement  of 
registration  is  indeed,  in  itself,  an  obstruction  :  it  involves 
a  certain  expenditure  of  labor  and  money  ;  a  few  shillings 
and  an  hour's  time.  But  it  gives  every  possible  buyer 
such  an  assurance  as  to  his  title  and  the  history  of  the 
property,  as  constitutes  an  intellectual  and  moral  help  in 
the  acquisition  of  estates,  of  the  greatest  effectiveness.1 
For  it  should  be  borne  in  mind,  in  all  discussions  relating 
to  the  exchange  and  distribution  of  wealth,  that  fear, 
ignorance,  superstition  and  custom  are  as  truly  obstruc- 
tive as  are  rivers  and  mountains;  and  if  a  registrative  pro- 
vision gives  certainty  and  clearness,  where  before  was 
doubt  and  apprehension,  or  utter  ignorance,  it  may  pay 
a  thousand  times  over,  for  the  nominal  hindrance  to 
action  which  is  involved  in  a  formal  compliance  with  its 
requirements. 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  perfect  freedom  becomes  the 
condition  of  economical,  any  more  than  it  is  of  political, 
security  and  advancement.  Why  should  not  the  throw- 
ing-off  of  economical  restrictions  among  a  people  long 

1  In  England,  the  absence  of  a  system  of  registering  titles  has  bui 
dened  the  transfer  of  estates  most  oppressively. 


170  THE  WAGES   QUESTION. 

abused  and  deeply  abased,  be  accomplished  with,  the  same 
caution,  and  the  same  regard  for  the  order  of  things,  as 
the  social  and  political  emancipation  and  enfranchisement 
of  oppressed  masses  ?  Yet  we  find  writers  who  would 
ridicule  the  notion  that  one  form  of  government  is  equally 
good  for  all  peoples,  or  that  any  form  of  government  could 
be  good  for  any  people,  which  had  not  respect  to  national 
peculiarities  of  character  and  structure  ;  who  hold  that  no 
people  long  degraded  can  safely  be  raised  at  once  to  politi- 
cal freedom  ;  and  even  insist  that  among  a  people  long 
habituated  to  universal  suffrage,  and  with  traditions  of 
self-rule  extending  through  centuries,  stringent  limitations 
should  be  imposed  on  the  popular  will :  we  find,  I  say, 
these  writers  declaring  for  the  removal  of  all  restrictions 
throughout  industrial  society,  even  such  as  are  of  a  regu- 
lative character  merely,  not  only  without  regard  to  th« 
habits  or  condition  of  the  people,  but  equally  without 
regard  to  the  order  in  which  such  restrictions  should  be 
removed. 

For  myself,  I  am  utterly  at  a  loss  to  conceive  how  such 
reasoners,  some  of  whom  are  conservatives  and  pessimists 
of  the  deepest  dye  in  politics,  justify  their  optimistic  radi- 
calism in  industry.  Certainly,  if,  as  Chevalier,  the  great 
apostle  of  free  trade  in  France,  has  said,  Political  Econ- 
omy and  politics  rest  on  the  same  principles, 1  there  would 
seem  to  be  as  much  virtue  in  judicious  and  disinterested 
restraint  in  labor,  as  in  government  or  society.  Nowhere 
has  restraint  any  positive  virtue ;  no  life  or  healing  comes 
out  of  it ;  but  grave  evils  may  be  suppressed  ;  great  waste 
and  mischief  prevented  by  it. 

But  while  I  hold  that  discretion  and  order  should  be 
observed  in  throwing  off  social,  political  and  economical 
restrictions,  alike,  I  hold  this  in  no  desponding  or  distrust- 


luL'economie  politique  s'appuie   sur  lea  memes    principes  que  It 
politique."--8th  Discours  d'ouverture  de  1'annee,  1847-8. 


THE  PROBLEM  Off  DISTRIBUTION.  m 

ful  vein.  I  believe  that  society  and  industry  may  unload 
rapidly,  if  in  due  order ;  that  there  is  something  in  the 
very  name  of  liberty  to  which  the  heart  of  man,  in  what- 
ever condition,  responds ;  and  that  men  who  believe  in 
freedom  are  the  safest  guides  in  directing  the  progress  of 
a  people  toward  perfect  freedom.  I  do  not  say  that 
progress  should  be  made  slowly  ;  but  that  it  should  be 
made  by  steps,  by  due  gradation — and  with  something 
of  preparation  for  each  successive  stage  of  the  advance. 


What  then  is  the  problem  of  Distribution  ? 

We  have  seen  that  so  far  as  differences  exist  in  respect  to 
the  ability  and  opportunities  of  the  several  classes  of  indus- 
trial society  to  resort  swiftly  and  surely  to  the  best  market, 
such  difference  must  put  at  an  economical  disadvantage  the 
class  suffering  the  greatest  relative  obstruction,  and  con- 
fer corresponding  advantages  at  their  expense,  upon  tho 
class  or  classes  more  favorably  situated  and  better  en- 
dowed. We  have  seen,  moreover,  that  such  disadvantages, 
be  they  great  or  small,  at  the  outset,  are  cumulative  ;  that 
the  word  "  to  him  that  hath  shall  be  given,  and  from  him 
that  hath  not  shall  be  taken  away  even  the  little  that  he 
seemeth  to  have,"  is  a  law  of  universal  operation  and  a 
very  unharmonizing  tendency;  that  economical  forces, 
thus,  instead  of  bringing  redress,  tend  to  crowd  further 
down  the  classes  who  enter  the  struggle  weakest. 

If,  then,  the  political  economist  finds  the  obstructions  be- 
setting the  resort  to  the  best  market,  existing  in  the  present 
condition  of  industrial  society,  to  be,  in  fact,  serious,  is  ho 
not  bound  to  abandon  a  rule  of  conduct  based  on  tho 
assumption  of  a  competition  so  general  that  it  may  for  prac- 
tical purposes  be  deemed  universal,  and  to  study  critically 
the  condition  of  the  several  classes  of  persons  making  claims 
on  the  product  of  industry  with  a  view  to  ascertain  what  help 


173  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

can  be  brought  from  the  outside,  in  the  absence  of  any  repar- 
ative  virtue  in  industrial  causes,  to  supply  the  deficiencies  of 
competition  ?  Failing  to  find  relief  in  economical  forces,  he 
will  look  away  to  moral  forces  to  achieve  the  emancipation 
of  the  economically  oppressed  classes,  not  by  taking  them 
out  from  under  the  operation  of  economical  laws,  for  that 
is  impossible,  but  by  providing  the  conditions  (intelligence, 
frugality  and  sobriety,  political  franchises  and  social  ambi- 
tions) which  will  secure  that  mobility,  that  easy,  quick  and 
sure  resort  to  market,  which  alone  is  needed  to  give  scope 
and  sway  to  the  beneficent  agencies  of  competition. 
Fortunately  he  may  look  with  confidence  to  see  this 
amelioration  coincide  with  a  continued  increase  in  the 
productive  power  of  labor,  due  to  fresh  advances  in  the 
arts  and  sciences,  which  will  facilitate  the  upward  move- 
ment. 

Meanwhile  the  question  whether  any  specific  legislation 
in  protection  of  the  working  classes  (say,  a  factory  act),  or 
any  measure  of  regulation  and  restraint  adopted  by  an  in- 
dustrial class  for  their  own  benefit  (say,  a  trades  union 
rule),  is  likely  to  promote  the  desired  object,  should  be 
treated,  I  suggest,  on  the  following  principle.  Remem- 
bering that  the  one  thing  to  be  secured  for  the  right  dis- 
tribution of  wealth,  is  perfect  competition,  it  should  be 
.inquired,  whether  that  act  or  measure  will,  all  things  con- 
sidered, on  the  whole  and  in  the  long  run,  increase  or  dimin- 
ish the  substantial,  not  the  nominal,  freedom  of  movement. 
If  the  effect  would  be  to  quicken  the  resort  to  market,  then, 
no  matter  how  far  restrictive  in  form,  it  must  be  approved. 
But  in  considering  the  probable  tendencies  of  such  acts  or 
measures,  we  should  bear  in  mind  how  great  are  the 
liabilities  to  error  and  corruption  in  legislation  ;  how  cer- 
tain is  the  administration  of  the  law  to  fall  shore  of  its 
intent ;  how  much  better  most  results  are  reached  through 
social  than  through  legal  pressure ;  how  destitute  of  all 
positive  virtue,  all  healing  efficacy,  is  restraint,  its  only 


TEE  PROBLEM  OF  DISTRIBUTION.  173 

office  being  to  prevent  waste ;  how  frequently,  too,  good 
acts  become  bad  precedents. 1 

Yet  these  considerations,  strong  as  they  are,  do  not 
suffice  to  create  doubt  in  my  mind  of  the  justification,  on 
purely  economical  grounds,  of  laws  for  the  registration  of 
real  estate,  for  the  limitation  or  prohibition  of  truck,  or 
for  the  regulation  of  the  labor  of  children,  of  women,  or 
even  of  men,  in  accordance  with  the  dictates  of  the  most 
advanced  sanitary  science.  In  Chapter  XYIII,  questions 
will  arise  respecting  the  practical  influence  of  legislation 
upon  the  substantial  freedom  of  industrial  movement. 
These  will  be  discussed  with  single  reference  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  judgment  here  set  up.  And  when  the  question 
of  trades  unions  and  strikes  comes  before  us,  it  will  be 
treated  on  the  same  grounds.  I  shall  not  deern  the 
question  to  be  decided  against  these  agencies  by  the  fact 
that  they  take  the  form  of  inhibition  and  restriction ; 
but  shall  hold  myself  bound  to  inquire  whether  they  do,  in 
their  time  and  place,  increase  or  diminish  the  freedom 
and  the  fulness  of  the  laborer's  resort  to  market,  bearing 
in  mind  that  his  practical  ability  to  accomplish  that  resort, 
is  made  up  of  a  material  element,  the  means  of  transporta- 
tion and  of  provisional  maintenance,  and  of  intellectual 
and  moral  elements,  quite  as  essential. 

1  "  It  is  one  thing  to  repudiate  the  scientific  authority  of  laissez 
faire,  freedom  of  contract,  and  so  forth :  it  is  a  totally  different  thing 
to  set  up  the  opposite  principle  of  state  control,  the  doctrine  of  pa- 
ternal government.  For  my  part,  I  accept  neither  one  doctrine  nor  the 
other,  and,  as  a  practical  rule,  I  hold  laissez  faire  to  be  incomparably 
the  safer  guide.  Only  let  us  remember  that  it  is  a  practical  rule,  and 
not  a  doctrine  of  science ;  a  rule  in  the  main  sound,  but,  like  most  other 
Bound  practical  rules,  liable  to  numerous  exceptions  ;  above  all,  a  rula 
which  must  never  for  a  moment  be  allowed  to  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
candid  consideration  of  any  promising  proposal  of  social  or  industria 
reform,"— J.  E.  Cairnes'  Essays  in  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  251. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   MOBILITY    OF   LABOR. 

WE  have  seen  that,  with  perfect  competition,  the  work« 
ing  classes  have  ample  security  that  they  will,  at  all 
times,  receive  the  greatest  amount  of  wages  which  is 
consistent  with  the  existing  conditions  of  industry.  The 
object  of  the  present  chapter  is*to  ascertain,  if  we  may, 
how  far  the  actual  mobility  of  labor  corresponds  to  that 
theoretical  mobility  which  is  involved  in  perfect  compe- 
tition. 

And  first,  we  note  that  the  theoretical  mobility  of  la- 
bor rests  on  the  assumption  that  laborers  will,  in  all  things 
and  at  all  times,  pursue  their  economic  interests ;  that  they 
perfectly  comprehend  those  interests,  and  will  suffer 
nothing  to  stand  in  the  way  of  their  attainment.  Of 
course  the  men  of  whom  this  can  be  predicated  are  not 
real  human  men.  They  are  a  class  of  beings  devised  for 
the  purposes  of  economical  reasoning  in  accordance  with 
the  definition  given  by  Mr.  Mill  in  his  "  Essays  on  some 
Unsettled  Questions  in  Political  Economy,"  as  follows: 
"Political  Economy  is  concerned  with  man  solely  as  a 
being  who  desires  to  possess  wealth,  and  who  is  capable  of 
judging  of  the  comparative  efficacy  of  means  to  that 
end.  .  .  It  makes  entire  abstraction  of  every  other 
human  passion  or  motive,  except  those  which  may  be 
regarded  as  perpetually  antagonizing  principles  to  the 
desire  of  wealth,  namely,  aversion  to  labor  and  desire  of  the 
present  enjoyment  of  costly  indulgences.  These  it  takes, 
to  a  certain  extent,  into  its  calculations,  because  these  dc 


THE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  175 

not  merely,  like  other  desires,  occasionally  conflict  with 
the  pursuit  of  wealth,  but  accompany  it  always  as  a  drag 
or  impediment,  and  are  therefore  inseparably  mixed  up 
in  the  consideration  of  it.  Political  Economy  considers 
mankind  as  occupied  solely  J  in  acquiring  and  consuming 
wealth." 

But  thus  to  frame  a  system  of  economics  upon  the  as- 
sumption of  the  perfect,  unintermitted,  unimpeded  action 
of  one,  and  that  not  always  the  most  potential,  of  many 
human  motives,  is  it  not,  as  Dr.  Whewell  has  said, 2  as  if 
the  physical  geographer  should  construct  his  scheme  in  rec- 
ognition of  gravitation  alone,  disregarding  the  power  of 
cohesion  in  preserving  the~original  structure  of  the  earth's 
surface,  and  should  thus  reach  the  conclusion  that  all  the 
mountains  must  at  once  run  down  into  the  valleys  and  the 
face  of  nature  become  a  plain  ?  In  much  the  same  way  the 
economist  of  the  &  priori  school  disregards  the  original 
structure  of  industrial  society,  the  separation  of  classes 
and  nations,  the  obstructions  offered  by  differences  of  race, 
religion  and  speech,3  the  effects  of  strangeness  and  appre- 

1  If  Mr.  Mill  had  said,  "  Political  economy  considers  mankind  solely 
as  occupied  in  acquiring  and  consuming  wealth,"  the  statement  would 
Jiave  been  unexceptionable.  But  if  "  Political  economy  considers  man- 
kind as  occupied  solely  in  acquiring  and  consuming  wealth,"  Political 
economy  considers  mankind  most  falsely  ;  and  the  results  in  economi- 
cal reasoning  of  that  unwarranted  assumption  have  been  most  mis- 
•chievous.  Political  economy  is  not  bound  to  consider  mankind  so  far 
as  they  are  occupied  in  anything  else  than  in  acquiring  and  consuming 
•wealth  ;  but  it  is  bound  in  simple  honesty  not  to  consider  them  as  oc- 
cupied in  acquiring  and  consuming  wealth  when  they  are  not,  and  to 
a  degree  they  are  not. 

*  Introduction  to  R.  Jones'  Pol.  Econ. 

*  The  effects  of  speech-differences  in  preventing  the  easy  and  rapid 
flow  of  labor  are  clearly  to  be  seen  in  France  and  Scotland.      The 
greater  number  of  the  Bas  Bretons  cannot  speak  or  understand  French, 
and  are  hence  confined  more  closely  to  their  native  fields,  than  the 
people  of  any  other  section.     [Report  of  H.  B.  M.  Consul  Clipperton, 
1872,  p.  160.] 

The  commissioners  of  the  Scotch  Census  of  1871  found  the  influ 


170  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

hension  of  change,  the  constraints  of  ignorance  and  super- 
stition, the  attachments  of  home,  country  and  friends,  the 
helplessness  of  men  in  new  occupations,  the  jealousy  of  im- 
ported labor,1  and  perhaps  more  than  all  else,  the  inhibition 
of  migration,  in  the  case  of  perhaps  the  vast  majority  of 
the  race,  by  the  want  of  the  supplies  of  food  and  money 
necessary  to  their  removal  and  immediate  subsistence. 

Does  the  comparison  seem  extravagant  ?  Look  at  China. 
There  is  found  a  population  of  three  or  four  hundred 
millions,  of  whose  mode  of  life  and  means  of  subsistence 
travellers  give  accounts  that  are  simply  shocking  ;  reduced 
to  the  vilest  food,  the  vilest  clothing,  the  vilest  shelter,  or 
none  at  all  of  the  latter  two  classes  of  assumed  necessaries. 
Opposite  their  own  land  lies  a  region  of  great  fertility, 
containing  vast  expanses  with  an  average  population  of 
from  one  to  four,  six  or  ten  to  the  square  mile.  Why  has 
not  this  mountain  run  down  into  this  valley :  Why  have  not 
untold  millions  poured  upon  our  shores  to  relieve  the  fear- 
ful internal  pressure  of  the  Celestial  Empire  ?  The  rea- 
sons are  too  familiar  to  need  to  be  stated.  The  fact  is 
what  we  wish  to  use  here.  What  a  commentary  on  the 
political  economy  which  has  been  reared  on  the  assump- 
tion of  the  absolute  mobility  of  labor !  Three  or  four 
hundred  million  Chinese  suffering  the  extremity  of  misery 
at  home ;  63,199  Chinese  in  the  United  States  in  1870, 
and  that,  after  the  energetic  recruiting  of  Mr.  Koopmans- 

ence  of  tliis  cause  very  powerful  in  preventing  emigration  from  the 
northern  and  western  parts  of  Scotland,  including  the  Isles,  where  the 
Gaelic  is  still  spoken.  [Report  p.  20.  cf.  4th  Report  (1870)  on  the  em 
ployment  of  women  and  children  in  Agr.,  p.  117.] 

1  Miss  Martineau  notes  the  jealousy  of  "  imported  labor  "  (from  Ire- 
land) during  the  Napoleonic  wars.  [Hist.  England  1. 332.]  Even  so  late 
as  1846,  the  committee  on  Railway  Laborers  reported  that  not  only  did 
the  Irish  and  the  Scotch  not  work  on  the  same  gangs  with  the  Eng- 
lish navvies,  but  they  were  kept  apart  from  each  other.  [Report  p.  5.] 
There  was  especial  jealousy  manifested  toward  the  Irish  importations. 
[Ibid.  p.  52,  77.] 


FAILURE  OF  EMIGRATION.  177 

choop  and  his  emigrant-runners!  The  original  struct- 
ure of  that  mountain,  at  least,  has  withstood  the  effects  of 
gravitation  with  not  a  little  success.  Popocatapetl  has 
lost  a  larger  proportion  of  his  bulk,  in  the  last  one  hun- 
dred years. 

But  we  may  turn  to  a  people  less  strangely  constituted 
and  less  strongly  conserved  than  the  Chinese ;  a  people 
longer  in  contact  with  the  western  world,  and  in  blood, 
speech  and  faith  far  less  removed  from  the  nations  of 
Europe.  The  inhabitants  of  British  India  have  been 
moved  even  less  than  those  of  China,  by  the  pressure  of 
population,  to  seek  relief  in  more  sparsely  settled  portions 
of  the  globe.  "With  the  wages  of  manual  labor  at  3d.  a 
day  in  good  times,  and  with  a  scarcity  amounting  to  famine 
on  an  average  once  in  four  or  five  years,  the  East  Indians 
respect  the  "original  structure"  by  which  they  were 
placed  on  the  great  Asiatic  peninsula,  and  meet  their  fate 
where  they  were  born,  without  thought  of  change. 
Wages  may  rise  to  any  height  in  America  and  Australia, 
but  the  people  of  India  are  even  unconscious  of  any  im- 
pulse to  emigration  ;  and  with  oriental  stoicism  and  fatalism 
abide  in  their  lot,  like  the  everlasting  hills  that  guard  their 
northern  frontier. 

Surely  we  need  not  seek  more  such  illustrations  to 
justify  Dr.  WhewelPs  comparison.  In  these  two  instances, 
we  have  seen  nearly  half  the  human  kind  bound  in  fetters  of 
race  and  speech  and  religion  and  caste,  of  tradition  and 
habit  and  ignorance  of  the  world,  of  poverty  and  inepti- 
tude and  inertia  which  practically  exclude  them  from  the 
competitions  of  the  world's  industry. 

In  turning  now  to  consider  this  matter  of  the  power  of 
labor  to  protect  itself,  by  migration  or  otherwise,  among 
peoples  of  a  higher  industrial  civilization,  we  need  to  pro- 
ceed somewhat  more  analytically.  Let  us  discuss  this 
question  under  two  titles : 

1st.  The  migration  of  laborers  from  place  to  place. 


178  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

2d.  Change  of  occupation. 

1st.  The  migration  of  labor.  Why  should  laborers 
need  to  migrate  at  all  ?  Why  not  stay  and  work  in  theil 
lot  \  Movement  involves  the  expenditure  of  force  :  why 
should  this  waste  be  incurred  ? 

It  is  the  unequal  development  of  population  and  indus- 
try that  marks  the  beginning  of  most  of  the  distresses  of 
labor.  Industry  and  population  must,  it  is  evident,  fit 
together  throughout  the  entire  extent  of  both,  or  loss  of 
power  and  of  production  will  follow,  on  the  one  hand ; 
destitution,  squalor,  and  perhaps  starvation,  on  the  other. 
Labor  will  suffer  both  from  not  being  where  it  is  wanted, 
and  from  being  where  it  is  not  wanted.  Now  in  fact, 
there  is  ever  found  a  liability  in  population  and  industry 
to  grow  apart,  even  though  all  conditions  appear  to  re- 
main unchanged ;  while  no  new  cause  can  begin  to  ope- 
rate in  the  social  or  political  life  of  a  community,  which 
may  not  very  differently  affect  them.  Wherever  diver- 
gence appears,  there  is  distress.  At  times  the  effect  is 
almost  instantaneous,  when  sudden  calamities  overtake 
the  peculiar  industries  of  states  and  cities.  At  times  the 
effect  is  wrought  as  gradually  as  the  ruin  of  a  wall  into 
whose  seams  some  slow-maturing  vine  has  thrust  its 
fibres,  never  to  be  withdrawn  till  stone  is  thrown  from 
stone.  Numberless  illustrations  might  be  drawn  from 
history  and  from  the  statistics  of  production,  of  this  ten- 
dency to  divergence  between  population  and  industry;1 

1  The  knitting  frame  caused  stocking-making  in  England  to  be 
transferred  from  its  former  seat  at  Norwich.  The  woolen  manufac- 
ture has,  within  living  memory,  migrated  from  Essex  and  Suffolk  to 
the  North.  Between  1857  and  1861  occurred  a  falling  off  in  the  mus- 
lin embroidery  manufacture  of  Ireland  and  Scotland,  which  in- 
volved a  reduction  in  the  number  of  persons  employed  of  146,000 
(Statistical  Journal  XXIV.  516.7).  About  1846,  the  English  power-loom 
caused  the  absolute  destruction  of  an  industry  which  supported  250,- 
000  workmen  in  Flanders.  (Ibid,  XXVIII,  15.)  Seemingly  petty 
changes  in  fashion  will  often  produce  wide-reaching  effects  in  produc- 


MOVEMENTS  OF  INDUSTRY.  m 

and  it  will  be  not  less  interesting  to  note  the  incessant 
small  vibrations  of  industry  which  require  an  almost  daily 
readjustment  of  population,  than  to  mark  the  course  of 
those  great  cyclical  changes  which  transfer  the  seat  of 
commercial  empire,  and  leave  cities  and  countries  for- 
saken and  almost  forgotten  behind. 

Such  being  the  tendency  of  industry  to  occasional  or 
periodic  movement,  the  mobility  of  labor  1  becomes,  under 
the  theory  of  competition,  an  essential  condition  of  its 

tion.  Mr.  Maltlius  states  that  the  substitution  of  shoe  ribbons  for 
buckles  was  a  severe  blow,  long  felt  by  Sheffield  and  Birmingham. 
"  On  a  smaller  scale  and  with  less  notoriety,"  says  a  writer  in  the  Athe- 
naeum, "  the  dismal  tragedy  of  the  cotton  famine,  is  enacted  every  year 
in  one  or  another  of  our  great  cities.  Every  time  fashion  selects  a 
new  material  for  dress,  or  a  new  invention  supercedes  old  contri- 
vances, workmen  are  thrown  out  of  employment."  Prof.  Rogers  gives 
the  following  piquant  illustration  of  the  effect  of  changes  in  the  mere 
fashion  of  dress.  "A  year  or  two  ago  every  woman  who  made  any 
pretension  to  dress  according  to  the  custom  of  the  day,  surrounded 
herself  with  a  congeries  of  parallel  steel  hoops.  It  is  said  that  fifty 
tons  of  crinoline  wire  were  turned  out  weekly  from  the  factories 
chiefly  in  Yorkshire.  The  fashion  has  passed  away  and  the  demand 
for  the  material  and  the  labor  has  ceased.  Thousands  of  persons  once 
engaged  in  this  production  are  now  reduced  to  enforced  idleness,  or 
constrained  to  betake  themselves  to  some  other  occupation.  Again, 
a  few  years  ago,  women  dressed  themselves  plentifully  with  ribbons. 
This  fashion  has  also  changed  ;  where  a  hundred  yards  were  sold,  one 
is  hardly  purchased  now,  and  the  looms  of  a  multitude  of  silk 
operatives  are  idle.  To  quote  another  instance.  At  the  present  time 
women  are  pleased  to  walk  about  bareheaded.  The  straw-plaiters  of 
Bedfordshire,  Bucks,  Hertfordshire  and  Essex  are  reduced  suddenly 
from  a  condition  of  tolerable  prosperity  to  one  of  great  poverty  and 
distress."  (Pol.  Econ.,  1869,  pp.  77-8.) 

1  But  it  may  be  said,  if  industry  abandons  population,  and  wages 
become  reduced,  this  of  itself  constitutes  a  reason  for  industry  to  return, 
as  it  will  have  the  advantage  of  cheap  labor.  This  is  much  as  if  one 
should  say :  the  approach  of  cold  induces  shivering :  shivering  is  of 
the  nature  of  exercise:  exercise  induces  warmth;  therefore  a  man 
may  not  freeze  on  a  Minnesota  prairie  in  an  ice-storm,  with  the  ther- 
mometer at  40  degrees  below  zero  ;  and  indeed  the  colder  it  gets,  th« 
more  he  will  shake,  and  consequently,  the  warmer  he  will  be. 


180  THE  WAGES   QUESTION. 

well-being.    It  is  of  course  not  necessary  that  the  whole 
body  of  laborers  should  be  organized  like  a  Tartar  tribe, 
packed  and  saddled  ready  for  flight.    The  great  majority  of 
laborers  will  never  be  required  to  move  at  all ;  but  as  it 
will  always  prove  that  of  those  who  could  go,  many  will 
not,  and  of   those  who  would  go,  many  cannot,  we  may 
fairly  say  that  the  laboring  population  is  never  likely  to 
be  more   completely    mobilized  by  intelligence   and   the 
possession  of  property,  than  is  desirable  in  order  to  render 
it  certain  that  just  the  amount  of  movement  from  industry 
to  industry,  and  from  place  to  place,  which  may  be  required, 
will   be  effected  with  the  minimum  of  loss  and  delay. 
Such  being   the  necessity  for  the  mobility  of  labor  to 
enable    it    to    follow  the    movements,   accountable  and 
unaccountable,  of  industry,  it  is  not  needful  to  go  into 
the  history  of  emigration  to  show  that  labor  has  scarce- 
ly, in  any  country,  possessed  the  readiness  and  activity 
which  answered   the   requirement.     The  United    States1 
perhaps  afford  the  highest  example  of  a  body  of  labor  pre- 
pared and  equipped  to  seek  its  best  market,  wherever  that 
market  may  be ;  and  Americans,  familiar  with  the  prompt 
and  easy  flow  of  population  here,  are  liable  to  under-esti- 
mate  the  difficulties  which  beset  the  like  movements  in 
almost  any  other  country  of  the  world.     In  part,  the  activ- 
ity of  labor  in  the  United  States  is  due  to  the  generosity 
of  nature  with  us,  which  allows  so  large  a  margin  of  ex- 
penditure.    In  still  greater  measure,  it  is  due  to  the  wido 
diffusion  of  information  through  the  press  and  the  post- 

i  In  1870,  7,500,000  persons  of  the  native  population  were  living  in 
suites  other  than  those  of  their  birth. — See  Census  Reports.  "  The 
full-blooded  American,"  says  Chevalier,  "  has  this  in  common  with 
the  Tartar,  that  he  is  encamped,  not  established,  on  the  soil  he  treada 
upon." — Travels  in  the  United  States,  p.  129. — In  Russia,  too,  the  free- 
dom of  migration  from  place  to  place,  has  frequently  been  noted. 
Sir  Arch.  Alison  attributes  this  to  the  Tartar  blood. — History  of  Europe 
iv,  164. — See  Sir  A.  Buchanan's  account  of  the  industrial  nomada  of 
Russia.— Reports,  H.  B.  M.  Consuls,  etc.  1870,  p.  301. 


MOVEMENTS  OF  POPULATION.  181 

office.  Perhaps  in  still  greater  degree  is  it  due  to  the 
almost  perfect  social  and  political  freedom  which  prevails, 
in  the  absence  of  those  barriers  and  restrictions l  which,  to 
the  inhabitant  of  older  lands,  are  as  much  a  matter  of 
course  as  the  limitations  to  his  power  of  reaching  objects 
•with  his  arm.  The  exceptions  to  this  readiness  to  follow 
industry  in  its  movements,  are  found  among  three  classes : 
the  newly  emancipated  slaves  of  the  south,  in  respect  to 
whom  no  explanation  is  required,  that  portion  of  our 
women  who  are  compelled  to  enter  the  general  market  for 
labor,  and,  lastly,  our  foreign  population,  and  among  these 
the  disability  indicated  exists  mainly  among  those  who 
have  been  left  in  our  eastern  cities  by  the  exhaustion  of 
the  immigrating  force. 

"  No  one  can  travel  much  in  the  East  without  seeing 
that,  with  no  small  proportion  of  our  vast  foreign  element, 
occupation  is  determined  by  a  location  that  is  accidental, 
or  practically  beyond  the  control  of  individuals  ;  that  these 
people  are  doing  what  they  are  doing  because  they  are 
where  they  are.  And  the  reason  for  such  a  wholesale  sub- 
jection of  labor  to  its  circumstances,  is  found  in  the  miscel- 
laneousness,  the  promiscuousness,  and  we  may  say  the  tumul- 
tuousness  of  the  immigration  to  the  United  States  since  the 
days  of  the  Irish  famine.  Of  all  who  have  come  to  us  in  the 
past  twenty-seven  years,  by  far  the  greater  part  have  come 
unprovided  and  uninstructed  for  the  experiences  of  their 
American  life.  Whether  pushed  fairly  out  of  their  own 
country  by  the  pressure  of  population,  or  escaping  from 
military  conscription,  or  moved  by  restlessness  and  the  spirit 

1  "  No  cause  has,  perhaps,  more  promoted,  in  every  respect,  the 
general  improvement  of  the  United  States  than  the  absence  of  those 
systems  of  internal  restriction  and  monopoly,  which  continue  to  dis- 
figure the  state  of  society  in  other  countries.  No  laws  exist  here 
directly  or  indirectly  confining  men  to  a  particular  occupation  or 
place,  or  excluding  any  citizen  from  any  branch  he  may  at  any  time 
think  proper  to  pursue.  Industry  is  in  every  respect  free  and  unfet- 
tered."—Albert  Gallatin. 


183  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

of  adventure,  or  burning  with  the  gold  fever,  or  allured 
by  the  false  reports  of  relatives  and  acquaintances  on  this 
side  the  water,  they  have  fallen  on  our  shores,  the  immi- 
gratory  impulse  exhausted,  their  money  gone,  with  no 
definite  purpose,  with  no  special  preparation,  to  become 
the  victims  of  tfheir  place  and  circumstances.  There  is  a 
tendency  at  every  harbor  wThich  lies  at  the  debouche  of  a 
river,  to  the  formation  of  a  bar  composed  of  mud  and 
sand  brought  down  by  the  current  which  yet  has  not  the 
force  to  scour  its  channel  clear  out  to  deep  water.  And 
in  much  the  same  way,  there  is  a  tendency  at  every  port 
of  immigration  to  the  accumulation,  from  the  failure  of  the 
immigrating  force,  of  large  deposits  of  more  or  less  help- 
less labor  which  a  little  assistance  from  government  would 
serve  to  carry  far  inland,  and  distribute  widely,  to  the 
best  advantage  at  once  of  the  immigrants  and  of  the  indus- 
try of  the  country. 

"Of  those  foreigners  whose  occupations  have  deter 
mined  their  location,  the  most  notable  instances  are  the 
Welsh  and  the  Scandinavians. 

"  Why  should  there  be  four  times  as  many  Welsh  in 
Pennsylvania  as  in  New  York:  Why  four  times  as  many 
in  Ohio  as  in  Illinois  2  The  reason  is  obvious :  the 
Welsh  are  famous  iron  miners  and  iron  makers.  They 
have  come  out  to  this  country  under  intelligent  direction, 
and  have  gone  straight  to  the  place  where  they  were 
wanted.  Quite  as  striking  has  been  the  self-direction  of 
the  Swedish  and  Norwegian  immigrants.  Four  states,  all 
west  of  Lake  Michigan,  contain  ninety -four  per  cent  of  all 
the  Norwegians  in  the  country  and  sixty-six  per  cent  of 
the  Swedes.  It  is  probably  not  owing  so  much  to  superior 
foresight  or  to  ampler  means  that  the  British  Americana 
"  in  the  States "  have,  as  it  would  appear,  located  therni 
selves  according  to  their  industrial  preferences,  as  to  the 
feet  of  their  original  proximity  and  the  advantages  they 
found  in  this  for  obtaining  information,  for  easily  reaching 


THE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  18| 

the  place  of  their  choice,  and  for  easily  recovering  them 

selves  in  case  of  mistake Of  all  our  foreign 

elements,  the  Irish  is  that  which  would  seem,  from  a  study 
of  their  occupations,  to  have  been  most  subject  to  circum- 
stances. The  conditions  of  the  forced  and  most  painful 
emigration  from  Ireland  must  be  held  to  account  amply 
for  this."  i 

"With  exception,  then,  of  the  three  classes  named,  there 
has  been,  in  the  fortunate  state  of  freedom  from  social  and 
legal  restraints,  in  the  great  generosity  of  nature  on  our 
behalf,  and  in  the  general  intelligence  of  our  population, 
if  not  that  perfect  competition  which  the  economists 
assume  in  their  reasonings,  at  least  a  very  active  resort  of 
labor  to  market.  Our  advantages  in  this  respect  are,  how- 
ever, highly  exceptional.  In  general  it  is  found  as  Adam 
Smith  has  expressed  it,  that  "  of  all  sorts  of  luggage,  man 
is  the  most  difficult  to  be  transported." 

Mr.  Frederick  Harrison 2  has  thus  set  forth  this  diffi- 
culty of  moving  labor  to  its  market : 

"  In  most  cases,  the  seller  of  a  commodity  can  send  it 
or  carry  it  about  from  place  to  place,  and  market  to  mar- 
ket, with  perfect  ease.  He  need  not  be  on  the  spot;  he 
generally  can  send  a  sample ;  he  usually  treats  by  corre- 
spondence. A  merchant  sits  in  his  counting  house,  and 
by  a  few  letters  or  forms,  transports  and  distributes  the  sub- 
sistence of  a  whole  city  from  continent  to  continent.  In 
other  cases,  as  the  shopkeeper,  the  ebb  and  flow  of  pass- 
ing multitudes,  supplies  the  want  of  locomotion  in  his 
wares.  His  customers  supply  the  locomotion  for  him. 
This  is  a  true  market.  Here  competition  acts  rapidly, 

i  The  Advance,  Dec.  10, 1874.  In  the  last  century  the  Irish  emigra- 
tion was  from  an  altogether  different  class.  "  The  spirit  of  emigration 
in  Ireland,"  said  Arthur  Young  in  1777,  "  appears  to  be  confined  to  twc 
circumstances,  the  Presbyterian  religion  and  the  linen  manufacture.1 
— Pinkerton,  iii.  868. 

f  Fortnightly  Review,  III.  50. 


I»4  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

fully,  simply,  fairly.  It  is  totally  otherwise  with  a  aa^ 
laborer,  who  has  no  commodity  to  sell.  He  must  himself 
be  present  at  every  market,  which  means  costly,  personal 
locomotion.  He  cannot  correspond  with  his  employer ; 
he  cannot  send  a  sample  of  his  strength  ;  nor  do  employ- 
ers knock  at  his  cottage  door." 

Of  the  freedom  of  movement  among  the  states  of 
Europe,  we  get  an  approximate  measure  from  the  follow- 
ing Census  Statistics,  *  which  are  about  twenty-six  years 
old.  Switzerland,  a  small  country  bordering  three  great 
nations,  and  having  the  languages  of  all  three  spoken  as 
native  tongues  in  her  own  limits,  contains  the  largest  pro- 
portion of  foreigners  to  total  population,  viz.,  2.99  per 
cent.  Holland  comes  next  of  those  on  our  list,  with  2.32 
per  cent ;  Belgium  next  with  1.76  ;  France  with  1.06  ; 
Denmark  with  0.93  ;  the  United  Kingdom  last,  with  0.27 
per  cent. 

But  the  statistics  of  international  migration  afford  a  very 
inadequate  and  often  a  very  deceptive  notion  as  to  those 
quick  and  apt  movements  of  population  which  anticipate  in- 
dustrial distress  and  prevent  the  breaking  down  of  the  labor 
market,  with  all  its  consequences  in  the  degradation  of  the 
working  classes.  To  move  from  one  county  to  another, 
or  even  only  from  one  parish  to  another,  would  cost  incom- 
parably less  than  to  move  across  the  sea,  and  would  often 
be  quite  as  effectual.  And  here  the  systematic  writers  in 
economics  commonly  assume  the  complete  mobility  of 
labor. 8  Yet  we  find  that  the  impulse  which  is  sufficient 
to  send  laborers  from  England  to  Australia,  is  not  always 
sufficient  to  send  them  from  Devon  to  Durham.  Prof. 
Senior,  in  one  of  his  illustrations,  supposed  that,  in  case  of 

1  Statistical  Journal,  xx.  75. 

9  "  The  assumption  commonly  made  in  treatises  of  political  econ- 
omy, is  that,  as  between  occupations  and  localities  within  the  same 
country,  the  freedom  of  movement  of  capital  and  labor  is  perfect."  [J 
E.  Cairnes,  "  Some  Leading  Principles,"  etc.,  p.  362.] 


THE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  135 

a  local  failure  of  employment,  laborers  would  follow  their 
landlord  from  Leicestershire  to  London,  but  not  from  Lon- 
don to  Paris.  In  real  life,  however,  the  difficulty  of  mi- 
gration is  not  so  graded.  Thus  Mr.  Chadwick  cites 
instances l  of  laborers  in  the  south  and  southwest  of  Eng- 
land, who  had  heard  of  America,  but  had  not  heard  of 
Lancashire,  and  could  not  be  persuaded  to  go  there,  on 
offer  of  favorable  employment. 2  Mr.  Muggeridge  bears 
quite  as  explicit  testimony  in  his  evidence  before  the  com 
mittee  of  1855. 

"  The  workman  never  goes  out  of  his  viHage,  and  is  aa 
ignorant  as  a  cart-horse  of  what  is  going  on  elsewhere, 
even  in  his  own  county.  I  found  on  going  into  the  North 
of  England,  that  there  was  a  demand  everywhere  for 
laborers ;  but  when  I  got  to  the  South  and  West  of  England 
I  heard  general  complaints  of  the  superabundance  of  the 
laboring  population,  and  consequently  of  high  poor  rates. 
I  then  suggested  to  the  government  a  plan  for  removing, 
with  their  own  consent,  the  unemployed  portion  of  the 
population.  I  think  that,  altogether,  something  like 
17,000  persons  who  were  paupers  and  wholly  out  of  em- 
ployment in  the  South  and  "West  of  England  were,  in  the 
North  of  England  put  into  most  lucrative  employment." 

Q.  "  At  the  time  to  which  you  refer,  there  was,  I 
presume,  a  great  demand  for  labor  in  the  North  of  Eng- 
land ? » 

A.  "  There  was  ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  the  people  in 
the  South  and  West  of  England  ever  heard  of  it.  I  carried 
the  news  of  it  into  Suffolk  and  Norfolk  also.  They  knew 

1  Statistical  Journal,  xxviii.  p.  12. 

a  A  part  of  this  effect,  viz.,  the  preference  of  emigration  from  the 
kingdom  over  migration  within  the  kingdom,  is  due  to  the  ineffable 
stupidity  of  the  act  of  12  and  13  Victoria  (c.  103)  which  enables  guar- 
dians of  the  poor  to  borrow  money  to  send  laborers  out  of  the  country  ; 
but  does  not  authorize  them  to  spend  a  penny  in  sending  a  person  from 
the  parish  of  his  residence  to  another  part  of  the  kingdom  where  em 
ployment  may  be  freely  offered. 


186  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

no  more  of  it  there,  than  they  did  of  what  might  be  going 
on  in  North  America."  l 

This  immobility  of  labor  has  of  course  powerfully 
affected  wages.  A  century  ago  Adam  Smith  wrote:2 
"  The  wages  of  labor  in  a  great  town  and  its  neighborhood 
are  frequently  a  fourth  or  a  fifth  part — twenty  or  twenty - 
five  per  cent — higher  than  at  a  few  miles  distance.  Eigh- 
teen pence  a  day  may  be  reckoned  the  common  price  of 
labor  in  London  and  its  neighborhood.  At  a  few  miles 
distance,  it  falls  to  fourteen  and  fifteen  pence.  Ten  pence 
may  be  reckoned  its  price  in  Edinburgh  and  its  neighbor- 
hood. At  a  few  miles  distance  it  falls  to  eight  pence,  the 
usual  price  of  common  labor  through  the  greater  part  of 
the  low  country  of  Scotland,  where  it  varies  a  good  deal 
less  than  in  England.  Such  a  difference  of  prices  which 
it  seems  is  not  always  sufficient  to  transport  a  man  from 
one  parish  to  another,  would  necessarily  occasion  so  great 
a  transportation  of  the  most  ~bulky  commodities,  not  only 
from  one  point  to  another,  but  from  one  end  of  the  king- 
dom, almost  from  one  end  of  the  world,  to  another,  as  would 
soon  reduce  them  more  nearly  to  a  level" 3 

One  might  suppose  that  the  vast  increase  in  the  facilities 
for  transportation  of  freight  and  passengers,  and  for  the 
diffusion  of  information  through  the  post-office  and  the 
printing-press,  would  have  gone  far  in  this  century  to 
remove  the  obstruction  which  then  retarded  the  flow  of 

1  Report  on  the  Stoppage  of  Wages,  p.  172. 

2  Wealth  of  Nations,  I.  79. 

3  In  discussing  his  extremely  valuable  Keturns  before  the  Statistical 
Society,  Mr.  Purdy  says  :  "  It  would  appear  that  no  commodity  in  this 
country  presents  so  great  a  variation  in  price  at  one  time,  as  agricul- 
tural labor,  taking  the  money  wages  of  the  men  as  the  best  exponent  of 
its  value.     A  laborer's   wages  in  Dorset  or  Devon  are  barely  half  the 
sum  given  for  similar  services  in  the  Northern  parts  of  England." — • 
Statistical  Journal,  xxiv.  344.   Mr.  Purdy  refers,  as  among  the  causes  of 
this,  "  to  the  natural  vis  inertise  of  the  class.     .     .     .    and  above  all, 
a  well  founded  dread  of  the  miseries  of  a  disputed  poor-law  settlement 
in  the  hour  of  their  destitution." 


THE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  187 

labor  to  its  market ; '  but  the  force  of  ignorance,  timidity 
and  superstition  is  not  so  easily  broken.  Prof.  Fawcett 
writes  :  "  During  the  winter  months,  an  ordinary  agricul- 
tural laborer  in  Yorkshire  earns  thirteen  shillings  a  week. 
The  wages  of  a  Wiltshire  or  Dorsetshire  laborer,  doing 
the  same  kind  of  work,  and  working  a  similar  number  ol 
hours,  are  only  nine  shillings  a  week.  This  great  differ- 
ence in  wages  is  not  counterbalanced  by  other  considera- 
tions ;  living  is  not  more  expensive  in  Yorkshire  than  in 
Dorsetshire,  and  the  Dorsetshire  laborer  does  not  enjoy  any 
particular  advantages  or  privileges  which  are  denied  to 
the  Yorkshire  laborer."  2 

1  Professor  Rogers,  in  his  History  of  Agriculture  and  Prices,  ex- 
presses the  opinion  that  not  only  the  transport  of  freight,  but  the  tran- 
sit of  persons,  was  as  free  in  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth  and  fifteenth, 
as  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  roads  were  maintained  in  good 
order,  chiefly  by  the  monasteries,  and  travelling  was  then  professional 
in  many  trades.  The  tiler,  the  slater,  the  mason,  and  the  finer  carpenter 
(who  made  furniture)  were  migratory.  [Hist.  I.  234-5  ].  Of  a  period  a 
little  later,  Prof.  Rogers  says,  "  Labor  travelled  in  those  days  (1530- 
1620)  as  freely  as  now  ;  indeed,  in  the  account  books  of  Elizabeth,  we 
find  that  mechanics  for  Greenwich  and  the  Tower  are  procured  from 
places  as  distant  as  Cardiff,  Dorchester,  Brighton,  Bristol  and  Bridge- 
water." — [Statistical  Journal,  xxiv.  548.] 

The  practice  of  travelling  or  "  wandering  "  as  it  is  called,  which  has 
come  down  from  this  period,  still  prevails  extensively  in  Germany 
among  the  younger  journeymen  ("  Herbergen") — see  Mr.  Petre's  report 
on  the  condition  of  the  industrial  classes,  1870,  p.  56.  The  ease  with 
which  the  German  artisans  are  "  metamorphosed  into  Frenchmen, 
Englishmen,  Italians,  Americans  or  Turks  "  (Mr.  Strachey,  Ibid  p.  507) 
has  doubtless  contributed  to  the  freedom  of  their  movement.  Not 
less  than  8,000  German  workmen  were  reported  at  Mulhouse  before 
the  war  of  1870. 

Consul  Wilkinson  reports  that  the  settled  population  of  the  province 
of  Macedonia  is  augmented  in  winter  by  five  or  six  thousand  itiner- 
ant artisans  who  quit  their  native  mountains  in  central  Albania,  and 
distribute  themselves  over  the  province  in  quest  of  employment,  [ibid 
p.  248].  M.  Ducarre's  report  to  the  French  assembly  of  1875,  notes  th« 
considerable  proportions  of  the  annual  migration  from  Italy  into  Cor 
sica.  [p.  247.] 

8  Pol.  Econ.    p.  167. 


188  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

But  while,  in  modification  of  the  assumption  of  the 
complete  mobility  of  population  under  economical  im- 
pulses, we  find  such  great  and  permanent  differences 
in  the  remuneration  of  labor  in  neighboring  districts,  if 
we  look  to  the  condition  of  the  lowest  order  of  laborers  in 
many  European  countries,  we  shall  see  reason  not  to 
assert  many  and  large  exceptions  to  the  rule  of  mobility, 
but  to  deny  the  validity  of  the  rule  altogether.  If  we 
consider  the  population  of  the  more  squalid  sections  of 
any  city,  we  can  only  conclude  that,  contrary  to  the 
assumption  of  the  economists,  the  more  miserable  men  are, 
the  less  and  not  the  more  likely  they  are  to  seek  and  find  a 
better  place  in  society  and  industry.  Their  poverty, 
their  ignorance,  their  superstitious  fears  and,  perhaps 
more  than  all,  the  apathy  that  comes  with  a  broken 
spirit,  bind  them  in  their  place  and  to  their  fate.  To 
apply  to  human  beings  in  their  condition,  maxims  derived 
from  the  contemplation  of  the  Economic  Man,  is  little 
less  than  preposterous.  Such  populations  do  not  migrate  ; 
they  abide  in  their  lot ;  sinking  lower  in  helplessness, 
hopelessness  and  squalor;  economic  forces  have  not  the 
slightest  virtue  either  to  give  them  higher  wages,  or  to 
make  them  deserving  of  higher  wages. 


2d.  I  have  spoken  of  change  of  location  as  a  means  of 
restoring  the  due  relations  of  population  and  industry 
which  have,  as  has  been  shown,  an  incessant  tendency 
to  grow  apart.  Let  us  now  consider  the  change  of  occu- 
pation, within  the  same  locality,  as  a  second  means  to 
that  end.  Not  only  may  the  industry  of  different  places 
or  sections  develop  with  great  irregularity  relatively  to 
their  respective  populations ;  but  in  any  place  or  section 
the  proportions  borne  by  the  several  branches  of  industry 
are  liable  to  frequent  and  extensive  alterations,  from  the 
effects  of  changing  fashions,  from  the  exhaustion  of  the 


THE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  199 

materials  which  have  formed  the  basis  of  production, 
from  the  invention  or  discovery  of  substitutes,  or  from  the 
growth  of  other  habits  of  living  in  the  community.  In- 
deed, as  between  the  two  great  divisions,  agriculture 
and  manufactures,  there  is  not  only  a  constant  tendency 
to  change,  but  there  is  the  highest  improbability  of  the 
proportions  long  remaining  the  same,  the  reason  being  the 
more  rapid  and  extensive  introduction  of  machinery,  and 
the  more  minute  subdivision  of  work  in  the  latter  than  in 
the  former  department. 

Again,  as  between  any  two  mechanical  pursuits,  the 
demand  for  labor  is  likely  to  be  differently  affected  by 
change  of  fashion,  by  the  application  of  new  arts  and 
the  discovery  of  new  resources.  Thus,  to  consider  a 
single  cause,  the  productive  power  of  a  hundred  hands 
engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  boots  and  shoes  was  in- 
creased thirty  per  cent  by  the  introduction  of  special 
machinery  between  1860  and  1870.  This  is  by  no  means 
an  extreme  example.  The  wholesale  discharges  of 
laborers  from  employment  in  the  textile  manufactures 
during  the  last  quarter  of  the  last  century  and  the  first 
quarter  of  the  present,  as  the  result  of  the  successive  inven- 
tions and  improvements  of  machinery,  required  a  readjust- 
ment of  population  to  industry  which  amounted  almost 
to  a  continuous  revolution.  In  a  greater  or  less  degree, 
the  need  of  such  readjustment  is  constantly  pressing  upon 
labor,  and  if  it  fails  to  be  effected  or  is  effected  partially 
and  tardily,  there  will  be  a  loss  to  labor,  a  two-fold  loss, 
first,  in  that  the  laboring  class  will  miss,  in  whole  or  part, 
the  advantages  of  the  opening  employment,  and  second, 
in  that  the  body  of  laborers  remaining  in  the  crowded 
occupations  will  trample  each  other  down  in  their  in- 
dividual eagerness  to  obtain  work  and  wages,  with  all  the 
consequences  in  the  degradation  of  labor,  which  have  been 
depicted  in  Chap.  IY. 

A  similar  result  may  be  brought  about  by  changes  in 


i90  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

the  comparative  demand  for  the  products  of  the  severa 
branches  of  manufactures.  These  changes  are  literally  in 
cessant,  sometimes  amounting  only  to  a  temporary  quick- 
ening of  production  in  some,  and  corresponding  dullness 
in  other  departments :  sometimes  amounting  to  the  slow 
decay  or  even  to  the  sudden  destruction  of  industries 
\vhich  have  engaged  large  bodies  of  workmen.  In  in- 
stances of  the  former  sort,  the  laborers  concerned  in  depart- 
ments which  suffer  depression,  simply  hold  on,  in  expecta- 
tion of  returning  demand  and  reviving  business ;  while  if 
certain  branches  of  manufactures  are  peculiarly  liable  to 
such  disturbances,  that  fact  comes  to  be  reckoned  among 
the  considerations1  which  determine  the  real,  as  contrasted 
with  the  nominal  rate  of  wages  therein. 

O 

But  not  infrequently  such  change  of  demand  exhibits  a 
persistency  which  brings  to  the  body  of  laborers  tradition- 
ally engaged  in  these  industries  the  choice  of  encountering 
a  general  failure  of  employment,  bringing  them  sooner  or 
later  to  the  condition  of  hopeless  pauperism,  or  of  seeking 
in  some  other  department  of  industry,  perhaps  in  some 
other  land,  the  means  of  supporting  themselves  and  their 
families. 

But  while  the  irregular  growth  of  different  branches 
of  industry  would  thus  require  a  frequent  readjustment  of 
labor,  if  we  assumed  an  equable  growth  of  the  populations 
which  furnish  the  natural  supply  of  such  branches  of  indus- 
try, severally,  there  is  the  possibility  of  a  further  and  more 
urgent  need  of  a  readjustment  arising  out  of  the  irregular 
growth  of  the  latter. 

By  the  population  which  furnishes  the  natural  supply 
of  labor  in  each  branch  of  industry,  I  mean,  simply,  the 
offspring  of  families  engaged  therein.  It  will  not  be  ques- 
tioned that  there  is  at  least  a  strong  tendency  within  each 
trade  to  supply  its  own  labor  by  its  own  increase.  That 
tendency  may,  according  to  circumstances  and  character, 

1  See  p.  26. 


TEE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  191 

be  slight^  or  it  may  be  very  strong,  or  almost  irresistible. 
It  differs  from  some  of  the  asserted  tendencies  on  which 
we  have  had  occasion  to  comment,  in  that  it  is  a  real  and 
not  an  ideal  tendency :  all  the  weaknesses  of  human  nature 
minister  to  make  it  powerful  and  effective.  Now,  there 
being  an  admitted  disposition  of  children  to  settle  down 
in  their  parents'  occupation,  the  need  of  a  readjustment  of 
labor,  which  can  only  be  effected  through  positive  efforts 
and  sacrifices,  becomes  greater  on  account  of  the  irregular- 
ity in  the  natural  increase  of  population  within  the  dif- 
ferent branches  of  industry,  which  is  wholly  additional  to 
the  irregularity  in  the  growth  of  those  branches  them- 
selves, viewed  as  furnishing  employment  to  laborers.  The 
rate  of  effective  increase  varies  greatly  within  each  such 
natural  population,  through  differences  both  in  the  aver- 
age number  of  children  to  a  family  and  in  the  proportion 
of  children  who  survive  infancy.1  In  agriculture,  for 
instance,  the  social  and  vital  conditions  of  the  occupation 
encourage  births,  while  pure  air  and  food  give  the  chil- 
dren born  on  the  farm  a  better  chance  of  life.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  some  occupations,  domestic  increase  is 
almost  practically  forbidden.  Occupations  range  all  the 
way  between  these  extremes,  in  this  respect  of  their  nat- 
ural supply  of  labor.  Thus  the  census  of  Scotland,  1871, 
shows  that  there  are  177  dependents  to  100  bread-win- 

1  It  is  not  merely  by  differences  in  the  birth-rate  and  in  the  death- 
rate  of  these  natural  labor-populations,  that  the  supply  of  labor  ia 
made  to  vary.  The  census  of  Scotland  quoted  above,  shows  that  the 
proportion  of  males  born  varies  greatly  in  the  different  occupations. 
Thus,  among  the  workers  in  chemicals  there  are  but  85.2  males  to  IOC 
female  children  under  five  years  of  age;  among  operatives  in  silk 
factories,  there  are  93.9,  in  cotton -factories,  95.3,  in  woolen  factories 
97.8  ;  while  among  the  agricultural  population  there  are  105.2,  among 
fishermen,  107.5,  among  general  out-door  laborers,  106.6,  among  quarry- 
inen  and  brickmakers,  107.8,  and  among  rail  way  laborers  and  navvies, 
117.1.  See  Report,  p.  44.  Of  course  the  greater  the  jroportional 
number  of  males,  the  greater  the  supply  of  effective  labor. 


192  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

ners  within  the  agricultural  class,  while  there  are  but  122 
dependents  to  100  bread-winners  within  the  manufactuK- 
ing  class.1  Doubtless,  some  portion  of  this  relative  defi- 
ciency in  the  manufacturing  class  is  due  to  the  larger  oppor- 
tunity for  the  employment  of  children  productively  in 
mechanical  industry ;  but  doubtless,  also,  a  considerable 
remainder  testifies  to  the  superior  fecundity  of  the  agricul- 
tural population,  and  the  greater  vitality  of  children  bred 
in  the  country. 

Such  being  the  occasion  for  a  frequent  readjustment  of 
population  within  the  several  occupations,  arising  from 
great  irregularity  of  growth  in  both  population  and  indus- 
try, how  far  is  labor  able  to  respond  to  such  economical 
necessities  ? 

Adam  Smith's  treatment  of  this  subject  constitutes  one 
of  the  most  extraordinary  phenomena  of  economical  lite- 
rature. No  man  has  dwelt  more  strongly  than  he  on  the 
difficulties  which  embarrass  and  delay  the  movement  of 
laborers  from  place  to  place.  It  is  his  own  phrase  that 
man  is  "  of  all  sorts  of  luggage,  the  most  difficult  to  be 
transported."  He  saw  in  his  own  little  island  the  wages 
of  common,  unskilled  laborers  ranging  from  eighteen  pence 
to  eight  pence  a  day,  while  in  the  islands,  just  a  bit  smaller, 
to  the  west,  he  saw  them  lower  by  from  twenty  to  forty 
per  cent;  he  saw  "  a  few  miles  distance,"  make  a  difference 
in  the  remuneration  of  the  same  sort  of  labor  of  "  a  fourth 
or  a  fifth  part ; "  he  knew  that  such  differences  had  existed 
for  generations  without  any  adequate  movement  of  labor, 
new  causes  continually  creating  divergence  faster  than 
population  could  close  up  the  intervals ;  and  he  exclaimed 
that  a  difference  of  prices  which  proved  insufficient  to 
carry  a  man  to  the  next  parish  would  be  enough  to  carry 
the  most  bulky  commodities  "  from  one  end  of  the  king- 
dom, almost  from  one  end  of  the  world,  to  the  other." 

1  Beport,  p.  42. 


THE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  193 

Yet  the  same  philosopher,  a  few  pages  on,  treats  the  dif- 
ferences which  appear  in  the  remuneration  of  the  different 
occupations  as  either  imaginary  or  else  transient.  It  is 
thus  he  writes  :  "  The  whole  of  the  advantages  and  disad- 
vantages of  the  different  employments  of  labor  and  stock 
must,  in  the  same  neighborhood,  be  either  perfectly  equal 
or  continually  tending  to  equality.  If  in  the  same  neigh- 
borhood there  was  any  employment  evidently  either  more 
or  less  advantageous  than  the*  rest,  so  many  people  would 
crowd  into  it,  in  the  one  case,  and  so  many  would  desert  it, 
in  the  other,  that  its  advantages  would  soon  return  to  the 
level  of  other  employments.  This,  at  least,  would  be  the 
case  in  a  society  where  things  were  left  to  follow  their 
natural  course." 1 

It  would  almost  seem  as  though  Dr.  Smith  deemed  the 
obstacles  which  beset  the  movement  of  laborers  from  place 
to  place,  to  be  physical  merely,  and,  since  no  physical 
difficulties  stand  in  the  way  of  a  change  of  occupation  by 
the  laborer  while  remaining  in  the  same  place,  he  saw  no 
important,  no  note- worthy,  obstacles  to  the  free  movement 
of  labor  from  employment  to  employment.  But  if  the 
obstacles  which  beset  migration  were  physical  merely,  man, 
instead  of  being  "  of  all  sorts  of  luggage,  the  most  difficult 
to  be  transported,"  would,  with  his  own  consent,  be  the 
easiest  to  be  transported.  It  is  because  the  difficulties 
which  beset  migration  are,  after  all,  mainly  moral,  that 
the  statement  quoted  above  is  true. 

Economists  writing  since  Adam  Smith's  time  have  gen- 
erally followed  his  lead  in  regarding  the  obstacles  which 
hinder  the  movement  of  laborers  within  the  several 
branches  of  industry  as  of  little  or  no  account.  Some 
exceptions  appear,  but  as  Prof.  Cairnes  remarks,  it  is 
commonly  assumed  in  treatises  of  political  economy  that 
between  occupations,  as  between  localities,  in  the  same 

>  Wealth  of  Nations  i,  pp.  103-4 


194  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

country,  the  freedom  of  movement,  for  labor  or  for  capi- 
tal, is  perfect.1  In  1874,  however,  that  eminent  economist 
brought  forward  his  theory  of  "  Non-Competing  Groups  " 
in  industry,  a  contribution  of  so  much  importance  that  I 
insert  his  statement  substantially  entire.  The  form  of 
Prof.  Cairn es'  opening  is  due  to  the  fact  that  he  is  reply- 
ing to  a  "  school  of  reasoners  "  of  whom  Mr.  F.  D.  Longe 
was,  we  may  assume,  the  individual  most  conspicuously 
in  his  view  at  the  time,  who  hold  the  movement  of  labor  as 
between  occupations  to  be  practically  nil. 

"  Granted,  that  labor  once  engaged  in  a  particular  occu- 
pation is  practically  committed  to  that  species  of  occupa- 
tion, all  labor  is  not  thus  engaged  and  committed.  A 
young  generation  is  constantly  coming  forward,  whose 
capabilities  may  be  regarded  as  still  in  disposable  form. 
.  .  .  The  young  persons  composing  this  body,  or  others 
interested  in  their  welfare,  are  eagerly  watching  the  pros- 
pects of  industry  in  its  several  branches,  and  will  not  be 
slow  to  turn  toward  the  pursuits  that  promise  the  largest 
rewards.  .  .  .  On  the  other  hand,  while  fresh  labor  is 
coming  on  the  scene,  worn-out  labor  is  passing  off; 
and  the  departments  of  industry  in  which  remunera- 
tion has  from  any  cause  fallen  below  the  average  level, 
ceasing  to  be  recruited,  the  numbers  of  those  employed 
in  them  will  quickly  decline,  until  supply  is  brought 
within  the  limits  of  demand,  and  remuneration  is  restored 
to  its  just  proportions.  In  this  way,  then,  in  the  case  of 
labor  as  in  that  of  capital,  the  conditions  for  an  effective 
competition  exist,  notwithstanding  the  practical  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  transferring  labor,  once  trained  to  a  particu- 
lar occupation,  to  new  pursuits.  But  as  I  have  already  in- 
timated, the  conditions  are,  in  this  case,  realized  only  in  an 
imperfect  manner.  .  .  Each  individual  laborer  can  only 
choose  his  employment  within  certain  tolerably  well-defined 
limits.  These  limits  are  the  limits  set  by  the  qualifica- 

1  Some  Leadiug  Principles,  etc.,  p.  362. 


THE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  195 

tions  required  for  each  branch  of  trade,  and  the  amount  of 
preparation  necessary  for  their  acquisition.  Take  an  indi- 
vidual workman  whose  occupation  is  still  undetermined, 
he  will,  according  to  circumstances,  have  a  narrower  or 
wider  field  of  choice ;  but  in  no  case  will  this  be  co-exten- 
sive with  the  entire  range  of  domestic  industry.  If  he 
belongs  to  the  class  of  agricultural  laborers,  all  forms  of 
mere  unskilled  labor  are  open  to  him>  but  beyond  this  he 
is  practically  shut  out  from  competition.  The  barrier  is 
his  social  position  and  circumstances  which  render  his 
education  defective,  while  his  means  are  too  narrow  to 
allow  of  his  repairing  the  defect,  or  of  deferring  the  return 
upon  his  industry,  till  he  has  qualified  himself  for  a  skilled 
occupation.  Mounting  a  step  higher  in  the  industrial 
scale — to  the  artisan  class,  including  with  them  the  class 
of  small  dealers  whose  pecuniary  position  is  much  upon  a 
par  with  artisans — here  also  within  certain  limits  there  is 
complete  freedom  of  choice  ;  but  beyond  a  certain  range, 
practical  exclusion.  The  man  who  is  brought  up  to  be 
an  ordinary  carpenter,  mason,  or  smith,  may  go  to  any  of 
these  callings,  or  a  hundred  more,  according  as  his  taste 
prompts,  or  the  prospect  of  remuneration  attracts  him ; 
but  practically  he  has  no  power  to  compete  in  those  higher 
departments  of  skilled  labor  for  which  a  more  elaborate 
education  and  larger  training  are  necessary,  for  example, 
mechanical  engineering.  Ascend  a  step  higher  still,  and 
we  find  ourselves  again  in  the  presence  of  similar  limita- 
tions ;  we  encounter  persons  competent  to  take  part  in  any 
of  the  higher  skilled  industries,  but  practically  excluded 
from  the  professions. 

"  It  is  true  indeed  that  in  none  of  these  cases  is  the 
exclusion  absolute.  The  limits  imposed  are  not  such  as 
may  not  be  overcome  by  extraordinary  energy,  self-denial 
and  enterprise;1  and  by  virtue  of  these  qualities  indi- 

1  "  The  founder  of  the  cotton  manufacture  was  a  barber.  The  inven- 
tor of  the  power  loom  was  a  clergyman.  A  farmer  devised  the  appli- 


196  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

viduals  in  all  classes  are  escaping  every  day  from  the 
bounds  of  their  original  position  and  forcing  their  way 
into  the  ranks  of  those  who  stand  above  them.  All  this 
is  no  doubt  true.  But  such  exceptional  phenomena  do 
not  affect  the  substantial  truth  of  our  position.  What  we 
find,  in  effect  is,  not  a  whole  population  competing  indis- 
criminately for  all  occupations,  but  a  series  of  industrial 
layers  superimposed  on  one  another,  within  each  of  which 
the  various  candidates  for  employment  possess  a  real  and 
effective  power  of  selection,  while  those  occupying  the 
several  strata  are,  for  all  purposes  of  effective  competition, 
practically  isolated  from  each  other.1 

The  consequences  economically  of  this  practical  isola- 
tion of  large  industrial  groups,  must,  on  the  first  state- 
ment, strike  the  mind  of  the  reader  as  very  important  and 
far-reaching.  If  this  isolation  exists,  then  there  is  not  a 
tendency,  through  the  operation  of  economical  causes 
alone,  to  the  equalization  primarily  of  wages  throughout 
the  several  groups :  and,  derivatively,  of  the  prices  of  the 
corresponding  products  of  such  groups.  Prof.  Cairnes 
does  not  flinch  from  carrying  his  theory  to  its  proper  con- 
sequences. Citing  Mr.  John  S.  Mill's  law  of  Internationa] 
Values,2  he  declares  that  this  doctrine  is  manifestly  appli- 
cation of  the  screw-propeller.  A  fancy-goods  shopkeeper  is  one  of  the 
most  enterprising  experimentalists  in  agriculture.  The  most  remark- 
able architectural  design  of  our  day  has  been  furnished  by  a  gardener. 
The  first  person  who  supplied  London  with  water  was  a  goldsmith. 
The  first  extensive  maker  of  English  roads  was  a  blind  man,  bred  to 
no  trade.  The  father  of  English  inland  navigation  was  a  duke,  and 
his  engineer  was  a  millwright.  The  first  great  builder  of  iron  bridges 
was  a  stone  mason,  and  the  greatest  railway  engineer  commenced  his 
life  as  a  colliery  engineer." — Hearn's  Plutology,  p.  279. 

1  Some  Leading  Principles,  etc.,  pp.  70-3. 

8  "  That  doctrine  may  be  thus  briefly  stated  :  International  values  are 
governed  by  the  reciprocal  demand  of  commercial  countries  for  each 
other's  productions,  or  more  precisely,  by  the  demand  of  each  country 
for  the  productions  of  all  other  countries  as  against  the  demand  of  al] 
other  countries  for  what  it  produces.  .  .  Whatever  be  the  exchang 


THE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  197 

cable  to  all  cases  in  which  groups  of  producers,  excluded 
from  reciprocal  industrial  competition,  exchange  their 
products.  Such  cases,  as  I  have  shown,  occur  in  domestic 
trade,  in  the  exchanges  between  those  non-competing  in- 
dustrial groups  of  which  I  have  spoken."  As  applied  to 
such  groups,  the  law  formulated  by  Mr.  Mill  would  leave 
the  average  relative  level  of  prices  within  each  group  to 
be  determined  by  the  reciprocal  demand  of  the  groups ; 
or,  to  abandon  technical  language,  we  have  the  result  of 
large  groups,  each  of  which  is  left  to  meet  its  industrial 
fate  by  itself,  without  sharing  in  the  advantages  of  other 
groups,  or  contributing  to  their  welfare  out  of  its  own 
abundance ;  a  condition  in  which  it  can  no  longer  be 
claimed  that  if  one  group  be  exceptionally  prosperous, 
labor  will  flow  into  it  from  the  outside,  till  the  rate  of 
wages  therein  is  reduced  to  an  assumed  general  average, 
and  vice  versa.  What  then,  becomes  of  the  Economic 
Harmonies,  and  of  the  assumption  that  the  "  Laws  of 
Trade  "  only  need  to  be  left  to  their  unimpeded  operation  to 
bring  out  the  best  good  of  the  whole  industrial  community  ? 
Is  this  doctrine,  bringing  with  it  such  vast  consequences, 
true  ?  I  answer,  there  is,  in  my  judgment,  a  great  deal  of 
truth  in  it,  otherwise  I  should  not  be  justified  in  having 
introduced  it  at  such  length ;  but  that  it  will  be  finally  ac- 
cepted in  the  form  in  which  Prof.  Cairn es  left  it,  I  do  not 
believe,  though  it  is  not  unlikely  that  his  statement,  over- 
strained as  it  is,  will  compel  the  attention  of  economists  to 
considerations  of  real  importance  heretofore  overlooked, 
or  avoided  on  account  of  their  difficulty,  more  effectually 
even  than  a  more  measured  statement  would  have  done. 
Certainly  after  so  emphatic  an  utterance,  by  an  economist 

ing  proportions — or,  let  us  say,  whatever  be  the  state  of  relative  prices 
— in  different  countries,  which  is  requisite  to  secure  this  result,  those 
exchanging  proportions,  that  state  of  relative  prices,  will  become 
normal — will  furnish  the  central  point  toward  which  the  fluctuations 
of  international  prices  will  gravitate." — "Some  Leading  Principles, 
etc."  pp.  99,  100. 


.98  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

60  distinguished,  writers  in  economics  can  hardiy  continue 
to  assume  a  perfect  freedom  of  movement  on  the  part 
of  labor,  as  between  localities  and  occupations  within  any 
country,  an  assumption  as  mischievous  as  it  is  false. 

Instead  of  asserting,  as  Prof.  Cairnes  has  done,  the  prac- 
tical isolation  of  certain  great  groups,  with  entire  freedom 
of  movement  within  these  groups,  I  believe  that  a  fuller 
study  of  industrial  society  will  establish  the  conviction 
that  nowhere  is  mobility  perfect,  theoretically  or  even 
practically,  and  nowhere  is  there  entire  immobility  of 
labor ;  that  all  classes  and  conditions  of  men  are  apprecia- 
bly affected  by  the  force  of  competition  ;  but  that,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  force  of  competition,  which  nowhere  be- 
comes nil,  even  for  practical  purposes,  ranges  from  a  very 
high  to  a  very  low  degree  of  efficiency,  according  to 
national  temperament,  according  to  peculiarities  of  per- 
sonal character  and  circumstance,  according  to  the  laws 
and  institutions  of  the  community,  and  according  to  natu- 
ral or  geographical  influences. 

And  first,  briefly,  of  the  assumed  isolation  of  certain 
great  groups,  as  of  skilled  or  unskilled  labor.  Here  Prof. 
Cairnes  asserts  that  not  only  will  adult  laborers,  once 
engaged  in  unskilled  occupations,  not  go  up  into  skilled 
occupations  in  any  appreciable  numbers ;  but  that  the 
transfer  will  not  take  place  in  the  next  generation,  by  the 
passing  of  the  children  of  unskilled  laborers  into  skilled 
occupations,  to  an  extent  which  will  practically  affect,  in 
any  appreciable  degree,  the  numbers  of  the  class  into 
which  or  out  of  which,  such  children,  if  any,  shall  go. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  there  is  a  strong  constraint, 
made  up  of  both  moral  and  physical  forces,  which  keeps 
the  vast  majority  of  children  not  only  within  the  great  in- 
dustrial group  into  which  they  were  born,  but  even  with- 
in the  very  trades  which  their  fathers  individually  pursue. 
I  shall  have  occasion  hereafter  to  dwell  on  this  as  of  great 
importance  in  the  philosophy  of  wages.  But  that  this 


THE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  199 

constraint  is  so  powerful  and  unremitting  that  those  who 
escape  are  so  few  as  not  in  any  appreciable  degree  to  re- 
lieve the  class  which  they  leave  or  to  influence  the  class 
into  which  they  thus  enter,  I  must  doubt.  It  is  not  so  in 
the  United  States,  in  Canada,  in  Australia.  I  seriously 
doubt  whether  it  is  so  in  Germany,  with  its  universal  pri- 
mary instruction  for  the  young  and  its  admirable  system 
of  technical  education.  It  surely  is  not  so  in  Scotland. 

If  Prof.  Cairn es'  generalization  remains  sound  for  his 
own  country,  it  is  still  true  that  the  humblest  English 
laborer  has  only  to  emigrate  to  the  United  States,  as  tens 
of  thousands  do  every  year,  in  order  to  place  his  children 
in  a  situation  where  they  can  pass  into  a  higher  industrial 
group,  not  by  the  display  of  "  extraordinary  energy,  self- 
denial  and  enterprise,"  but  by  the  exercise  of  ordinary 
social  and  industrial  virtues. 

On  the  other  hand,  how  is  it  with  the  assumed  free- 
dom of  movement  within  the  industrial  groups  which 
Prof.  Cairnes  has  in  view  ?  Let  us  recur  to  his  own  state- 
ment of  the  case.  He  does  not  claim  that  laborers  who 
have  once  become  engaged  in  any  occupation  are  practi- 
cally free  to  leave  it  for  any  other  which  may  seem  more 
remunerative.  He  admits,  perhaps  too  fully  if  we  have 
regard  to  the  United  States,  Canada,  and  Australia,  that 
the  mass  of  laborers  are  held  in  their  place  and  lot  by  a 
constraint  from  which  it  is  practically  beyond  their  power 
to  escape.  But  he  does  claim  that  the  rising  generation 
of  laborers  furnishes  a  disposable  force— a  disposable  fund, 
he  terms  it — which  can  be  and  will  be  directed  freely 
within  the  great  groups  he  defines,  according  "  as  remu- 
neration may  tempt,  in  various  directions.  The  young 
persons  composing  this  body,  or  others  interested  in  thei? 
welfare,  are  eagerly  watching  the  prospects  of  industry  in 
its  several  branches,  and  will  not  be  slow  to  turn  towards 
the  pursuits  that  promise  the  largest  rewards."1 
1  Some  Leading  Principles,  etc.,  p.  69. 


200  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

Now  let  it  for  the  moment  be  granted  that  Prof.  Cairaes' 
proposition  is  true  to  the  full  extent,  how  far  does  the 
mobility  thus  given  to  labor  answer  the  requirements  of 
the  case  ?  Reference  to  tables  of  vital  statistics  will  show 
that  the  number  of  persons  annually  arriving  at  the  age  of 
twenty  is  from  two  and  a  half  to  three  per  cent  of  the 
population  twenty  years  of  age  and  upwards.  This  then  is 
the  extent  of  this  "disposable  fund."  Now  in  Chap.  IY. 
we  have  sought  to  show  how  serious  often  is  the  evil  effect 
upon  those  elements  of  character  which  go  to  make  up  the 
efficienc}^  of  labor,  of  even  a  brief  failure  of  employment ; 
how  almost  certainly  extensive  mischief  results  from 
"  hard  times "  protracted  through  months  and  years ; 
how  easily  and  quickly  harm  is  done ;  how  slowly  and 
painfully  industrial  character  is  built  up  again.  In  view 
of  such  possibilities  of  disaster,  always  imminent  from  the 
very  nature  of  modern  industry,  the  question  becomes  one 
of  great  importance,  whether  this  "  disposable  fund," 
which  Prof.  Cairnes  adduces,  is  large  enough  for  its 
purpose,  whether  it  secures  the  needed  mobility  of  labor. 
But  before  finally  answering  this  inquiry,  let  us  ask 
whether  Prof.  Cairnes  is  justified  by  the  facts  in  assuming 
that  the  whole  of  the  rising  generation  of  laborers  is  thus 
disposable,  "  fulfilling  the  same  function  in  relation  to  the 
general  labor  force  of  the  country  which  capital,  while 
yet  existing  as  purchasing  power,  discharges  in  its  rela- 
tion to  its  general  capital  ?  " 

One  would  not  lightly  speak  in  terms  of  ridicule  of  any- 
thing which  Prof.  Cairnes  has  written  ;  yet  there  is  some- 
thing ludicrous  in  the  picture  which  his  words  suggest  of 
a  weaver,  with  half  a  dozen  children  and  fifteen  shillings  a 
week,  earnestly  pondering  the  question,  to  which  of  the 
various  trades  of  the  group  to  which  he  belongs  he  shall 
devote  the  opening  talents  of  his  nine-year-old  boy,  now 
just  able  to  earn  three-pence  a  day  in  the  mill ;  or  of  pro- 
tracted and  frequently  adjourned  family  councils  in  which 


THE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  201 

poor  Hodge,  his  wife  and  eldest  daughter,  discuss  the  indus- 
trial capabilities  of  the  younger  members  of  the  family,  and 
the  comparative  inducements  of  the  several  hundred  manual 
occupations  recognized  in  the  tables  of  the  census.  The 
picture  is  ludicrous  only  because  the  truth  of  the  case  is  so 
pitifully  the  other  way.  We  know  that  mill  owners  are 
harassed  with  applications  from  their  hands  to  take  chil- 
dren into  employment  on  almost  any  terms,  and  that  the 
consciences  of  employers  have  required  to  be  rein- 
forced by  the  sternest  prohibitions  and  penalties  of  the  law 
to  save  children  ten,  seven,  or  four  years  old,  from  the 
horrors  of  "  sweating  dens  "  and  crowded  factories,  since 
the  more  miserable  the  parents'  condition,  the  greater 
becomes  the  pressure  on  them  to  crowd  their  children 
somehow,  somewhere,  into  service;  the  scantier  the  re- 
muneration of  their  present  employment,  the  less  becomes 
their  ability  to  secure  promising  openings,  or  to  obtain, 
favor  from  outside  for  the  better  disposition  of  their  off- 
spring. Once  in  the  mill,  we  know  how  little  chance  there 
is  of  the  children  afterwards  taking  up  for  themselves  an- 
other way  of  life. 

We  know,  too,  that  in  the  agricultural  districts  of  Eng- 
land, gangs  of  children  of  all  ages,  from  sixteen  down  to 
ten  or  even  five  years,  have  been  formed,  and  driven  from 
farm  to  farm,  and  from  parish  to  parish,  to  work  all  day 
under  strange  overseers,  and  to  sleep  at  night  in  barns 
huddled  all  together,  without  distinction  of  sex.  We 
know  that  the  system  of  public  gangs  required  an  act  of 
parliament  ten  years  ago,  to  break  it  up,  and  we  have  the 
testimony  of  the  commissioners  of  1867,  that,  in  spite  of 
the  law,  it  is  still  continued  in  some  parts  of  the  king- 
dom ;  while  the  system  of  private  gangs,1  only  less  shock- 

1  '•  Even  sometimes  as  many  as  eighty  or  one  hundred  may  be  taken 
from  a  neighboring  town  to  one  farm."  Report-  of  E.  B.  Portman,  asst. 
comm'r., — Employment  of  women  and  children,  1867-8,  p.  95.  "  At 
present,  parents  solicit  employers  to  take  children  into  service  often 


203  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

ing  to  contemplate,  is  still  continued  without  rebuke  of 
law.  Surely,  such  facts  as  these  are  not  consistent  with 
the  assumption  that  the  comparative  merits  of  a  large 
number  of  occupations  constituting  a  "  competing  group  " 
are  carefully  and  intelligent^  canvassed  by  parents,  anx- 
ious for  the  highest  ultimate  good  of  their  offspring,  and 
willing  and  able  to  take  advantage  of  opportunities  afforded 
in  branches  of  industry  strange  to  them  and  perhaps  pros- 
ecuted at  a  distance.  So  late  as  1870,  children  were 
employed  in  the  brickyards  of  England,  under  strange  task- 
masters, at  three  and  a  half  years  of  age.1  Account  is 
given  us,  sickening  in  its  details,  of  a  boy  weighing 
fifty-two  pounds,  carrying  on  his  head  a  load  of  clay 
weighing  forty-three  pounds,  seven  miles  a  day,  and  walk 
ing  another  seven  to  the  place  where  his  burden  was  to 
be  assumed.  Perhaps  his  mother  was  eagerly  "watching 
the  prospects  of  industry  in  its  several  branches,"  with  a 
view  to  selecting  a  thoroughly  agreeable,  remunerative, 
and  at  the  same  time  improving  occupation,  where  he 
could  at  once  earn  a  handsome  living  and  secure  oppor- 
tunities for  the  harmonious  development  of  his  physical, 
intellectual  and  spiritual  faculties,  but  I  scarcely  think  it. 
John  Allinsworth  tells  Mr.  White,  Asst.  Commissioner, 
how  he  and  his  son,  aged  nine  years,  earn  their  daily 
bread.  "  Work  in  the  furnace.  Last  Saturday  morning 
we  began  at  two.  We  had  slept  in  the  furnace,  being 
strangers  to  the  town.  We  live  at  Wadsley,  four  or  five 
miles  off.  We  have  to  be  here  by  six  A.  M.  It  is  a  long 
way  for  the  boy  to  come  and  go  back  each  day,  though  I 
can  manage  it.  I  should  like  to  get  someplace  in  the  town 
for  him  to  stay  in."2  !Nbw  there  is  a  father  who  is  looking 

BO  young  as  to  be  worthless." — Ibid.  p.  97.  "  In  Cambridgeshire,  the 
children  go  out  to  work  as  young  as  six  years  old,  many  at  seven  01 
eight." — Ibid,  p.  95.  cf.  pp.  12, 15,  note. 

1  Social  Science  Transactions,  1874,  p.  4. 

8  Report  of  1865,  p.  13. 


THE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  203 

out  for  his  son,  according  to  Prof.  Cairnes'  assumption  3 
yet  Mr.  Commissioner  White  would  probably,  from  his 
large  experience,  give  heavy  odds  that  John  Allinsworth's 
little  son,  aged  nine,  will  be  found  twenty  years  from  this, 
if  still  alive,  working  in  the  furnace,  perhaps  sleeping  in  it, 
stunted  and  blighted,  the  father  of  a  nine-years-old  boy, 
for  whom  he  too,  "  would  like  "  to  get  a  better  place  to 
work  and  sleep. 

I  have  not  called  up  such  pictures  of  human  misery  with 
the  object  of  exciting  compassion,  much  less  with  a  view  to 
obtain  an  advantage  in  controversy,  but  to  show  graphically 
the  error  of  Prof.  Cairnes'  assumption  that  parents  who  are 
tied  down  hopelessly  to  an  occupation  which  affords  but 
the  barest  subsistence  can  freely  dispose  of  their  children 
to  the  best  advantage  among  a  large  class  of  occupations. 
Especially  when  we  consider  that,  in  the  development  of 
modern  industry,  trades  become  highly  localized,  entire 
towns  and  cities  being  given  up  to  a  single  branch  of 
manufacture,  shall  we  see  the  practical  fallacy  of  this 
assumption.  Even  if  we  suppose  the  parent  to  be  advised 
of  better  opportunities  for  employment  opening  in  some 
trade  prosecuted  at  a  distance,  and  to  be  pecuniarily  able 
to  send  his  child  thither  and  secure  him  a  position,  yet, 
years  before  the  boy  or  girl  would  be  fit  to  send  away  from 
home,  the  chance  of  earning  a  few  pence  in  the  mill  where 
the  parent  works  would  almost  irresistibly  have  drawn  the 
child  into  the  vortex. 

May  we  not  then  question  Prof.  Cairnes'  assumption  that 
the  children  of  the  working  classes  constitute  "  a  disposa- 
ble fund  "  to  be  distributed  to  the  highest  advantage  of 
labor  among  those  occupations  which  at  the  time  are  most 
remunerative  ?  The  truth  is,  that  until  you  secure  mobility 
to  adult  labor  you  will  fail  to  find  it  in  the  rising  genera- 
tion, and  that  among  an  ignorant  and  degraded  population 
four-fifths,  perhaps  nine-tenths,  of  all  children,  by  what 
may  be  called  a  moral  necessity,  follow  the  occupations  of 


204  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

their  parents,  or  those  with  whom  their  fortune  h^,s  placed 
them.  The  great  exception  is  that  which  Prof.  Fawcett 
has  indicated,1  that  of  the  children  of  agricultural  laborers 
in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  flourishing  manufactories. 

We  have  now  reached  a  position  where  we  can  judge  of 
the  adequacy  of  the  force  which  Prof.  Cairnes  invokes  to 
secure  to  labor  its  needed  mobility,  and  we  must  pronounce 
it  wholly  insufficient.  Even  were  the  whole  mass  of 
labor  coming  each  year  into  market  to  be  reckoned  as 
"disposable"  in  the  sense  in  which  he  uses  the  term,  it 
would  yet  sometimes  fall  short  of  effecting  that  redistribu- 
tion which  is  required  by  changes  which,  as  we  have  seen 
not  infrequently  amount  in  a  few  years  almost  to  a  revo- 
lution of  industry  ;  but  when  we  consider  how  partial  and 
doubtful  is  the  mobility  thus  claimed  for  the  rising  gen- 
eration of  laborers,  we  are  constrained  to  say  that  unless 
more  can  be  adduced  than  Prof.  Cairnes  has  shown, 
the  freedom  of  movement  within  industrial  groups  which 
he  has  claimed  to  be  practically  perfect,  is  in  truth  very 
inadequate  to  effect  that  object  of  supreme  importance  to 
labor — the  free  and  quick  resort  to  the  best  market. 

But  it  may  be  asked,  is  not  the  ubiquity  of  the  "  tramp  " 
a  proof  that  you  have  over-estimated  the  difficulty  which 
besets  the  movement  of  labor  ?  Is  there  not  a  large  adult 
population  which  is  constantly  shifting  its  place,  here  to- 
day and  there  to-morrow  ?  What  more  could  you  ask  ? 

I  answer,  there  is  no  more  virtue  to  relieve  the  pres- 
sure upon  honest  self-respecting  labor  in  the  forces  which 
direct  the  movement  of  the  "  tramp,"  than  there  is  of  vir- 
tue to  save  men  from  drowning  in  the  forces  which  bring 
a  human  body  to  the  surface  after  a  certain  period  of  putre- 
faction. The  body  comes  up,  indeed,  but  only  when 

1  "  An  agricultural  laborer  is  not  suddenly  converted  into  a  cotton 
weaver.  Sucli  a  transition  rarely  takes  place ;  but  if  there  is  a  manu- 
factory close  at  hand  many  of  the  children  of  the  agricultural  laborers 
will  be  employed  therein."— Pol.  Econ.,  p.  170. 


THE  MOBILITY  OF  LABOR.  205 

swollen  and  discolored  by  the  processes  of  corruption ; 
and  so  the  laborer,  who  has  lost  his  hopefulness  and  self- 
respect  and  become  industrially  degraded,  whether  by 
bad  habits  for  which  he  is  primarily  in  fault,  or  by  the 
force  of  causes  he  had  no  strength  to  resist,  wanders  about 
the  country  begging  his  food  and  stealing  his  lodgings  aa 
he  can ;  but  his  freedom,  thus  obtained  by  being  loosed 
from  all  ties  to  social  and  domestic  life,  does  not  so  much 
relieve  labor  as  it  curses  the  whole  community,  rich  and 
poor  alike. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

THE  WAGES    CLASS. 

IT  has  been  said  that,  by  most  systematic  writers  on 
political  economy,  the  wages  class  is  taken  as  coincident 
with  the  labor  class.  In  the  opening  chapter  I  briefly 
indicated  five  important  classes  thus  brought  together 
under  a  single  title.  In  the  present  chapter  it  is  proposed 
to  show  that  of  the  five,  but  two  can  with  any  propriety 
be  said  to  receive  wages;  and  of  these  two, it  is  proposed, 
though  not  with  the  same  degree  of  assurance,  to  exclude 
one,  leaving  but  a  single  class  as  really  the  recipient  of 
wages.  It  is  hoped  that,  by  strictly  defining  the  wages 
class,  and  setting  the  other  classes  thus  distinguished  in 
their  true  relations  to  it,  something  may  be  added  to  the 
understanding  of  the  law  of  wages. 

To  begin :  The  wages  class  includes  only  the  employed. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  spend  time  in  proving  that  by 
etymology,  at  once,  and  popular  usage,  the  word  is  re- 
stricted to  the  remuneration  paid  by  one  person  to  another. 
Those  who  give  the  word  a  wider  significance  in  political 
economy  are  bound  to  justify  themselves  in  doing  so,  by 
showing  that  something  is  gained,  in  clearness,  thereby. 
But  my  reason  for  desiring  to  confine  the  word  as  has 
been  proposed,  in  a  treatise  on  wages,  is  better  than  a 
linguistic  one.  It  is  that  the  very  object  of  the  inquiry  is 
to  ascertain  the  laws  which  govern  the  condition  of  those 
persona  who,  having  no  command  of  the  agencies  and  in- 
strumentalities of  production,  are  obliged  to  seek  employ- 


THE  WAGES  CLASS.  207 

ment  and  the  means  of  subsistence  at  the  hands  of  others. 
It  is  the  condition  of  this  class  that  the  philanthropist  is 
especially  interested  in,  because  this  is  preeminently  the 
dependent  class.  The  economist  should  be  equally  inter- 
ested because  just  here  comes  the  real  strain  in  the  distri- 
bution of  the  products  of  industry.  How,  for  example, 
if  we  group  employer  and  employed  in  one  great  "  wages" 
class,  can  we  properly  reach  the  subjects  of  strikes  and 
trades  unions?  Are  we  not,  most  unnecessarily  and  in 
most  undeserved  contempt  of  popular  speech,  slurring  over 
and  obliterating  the  natural  and  obvious  distinction  which 
points  us  the  way  to  the  right  discussion  of  some  of  the 
most  important  questions  of  distribution,  when  we  speak 
of  the  wages  of  a  cotton  manufacturer ;  wages  stipulated 
by  no  one,  due  from  no  one,  and,  if  paid  at  all,  paid  by 
the  accidental  consumer  of  the  product? 

If  employers  do  not  belong  in  the  wages  class,  no  more 
do  those  who  are  neither  employers  nor  employed ;  who 
having  command  of  the  agencies  and  instrumentalities  of 
production  sufficient  for  their  own  labor,  take  a  most  im- 
portant part,  indeed,  in  the  production  of  wealth ;  but,  own- 
ing the  entire  product,  have  no  concern  whatever  with  the 
distribution  of  wealth,  and  hence  nothing  to  do  with  wages. 

We  thus  exclude  the  whole  body  of  peasant  proprietors, 
who  in  many  countries  constitute  the  bulk  of  the  popula- 
tion, and  are,  taking  the  whole  world  together,  undoubt- 
edly more  numerous  than  any  other  single  class  which  we 
shall  have  occasion  to  characterize.  These  persons,  culti- 
vating their  own  land  with  their  own  labor  only,  or  per- 
haps with  that  of  their  wives  and  minor  children  (having 
no  separate  rights  or  interests  recognized  by  the  law  of  the 
land,  and  hence  capable  of  making  no  demand,  as  laborers, 
for  any  portion  of  the  product),  create  in  the  aggregate  a 
vast  amount  of  wealth,  but  it  is  wealth  not  distributed. 
Each  such  peasant  proprietor  owns  the  entire  product  of 
his  land  (subject  only  to  the  claims  of  the  government  for 


208  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

contribution,  which  claims,  being  legal  and  not  economica 
in  their  nature,  cannot  be  recognized  in  an  economical 
treatise),  to  be  consumed  for  the  subsistence  of  himself 
and  family  and  the  increase  of  his  own  stock,  or  to  be 
exchanged  at  his  pleasure  for  the  products  of  others. 
Such  wealth,  therefore,  is  not  subject  to  distribution,  and 
hence  we  clearly  must  exclude  this  body  of  laborers  from 
the  wages  class. 

In  England  the  peasant  proprietor  does  not  exist. 
Forty  years  ago  Prof.  Jones1  wrote  "  In  parts  of  England 
and  Wales,  though  the  race  is  fast  vanishing,  there  may 
be  seen  specimens  of  our  first  division  of  laborers,  unhired 
by  any  one,  occupiers  of  the  soil,  tilling  it  with  their  own 
hands."  a 

The  "specimens"  have  by  this  time  all  disappeared 
except  possibly  from  Westmoreland  and  Cumberland,  coun- 
ties characterized  by  comparatively  small  estates.  But 
while  the  condition  of  large  landed  properties,  cultivated 
by  hired  agricultural  laKorers,  is  almost  universal  in  Eng- 
land and  Scotland,  one  cannot  cross  the  narrow  seas  in 
any  direction  without  coming  upon  a  condition  very 
different.3  To  the  west,  Ireland  furnishes  an  example  of 
which  we  shall  speak  in  connection  with  another  class  of 
producers  ;  while,  before  one  reaches  the  coast  of  France, 
he  finds  in  the  "  Channel  Islands,"  a  part  of  the  British 
empire  but  retaining  their  own  laws  regulating  the  descent 
of  landed  property,  a  body  of  peasant  proprietors  who 
have  furnished  the  advocates  of  that  system  of  cultivation 
with  some  of  their  most  valued  illustrations.  In  France 

1  "  Whose  Essay  on  the  distribution  of  Wealth  (or  rather  Rent)  is  a 
copious  repertory  of  valuable  facts  on  the  landed  tenure  of  different 
countries."— J.  S.  Mill,  Pol.  Econ.,  I.  297. 

•  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  15. 

8  "  You  have  no  other  peasantry  like  that  of  England.  You  have  no 
other  country  in  which  it  is  entirely  divorced  from  the  land.  There  ia 
BO  other  country  in  the  world  where  you  will  not  find  men  turning 
up  the  furrow  in  their  own  freehold." — Cobden,  Speeches,  II,  116. 


THE  WAGES  CLASS.  209 

the  principle  of  "  partible  succession,"  introduced  by  the 
[Revolution,  has  created  a  vast  number  of  small  properties, 
estimated  at  between  four  and  five  and  a  half  millions. 

"  In  Germany  a  revolution  of  the  same  nature,  though 
not  of  the  same  magnitude,  has  been  effected  in  a  more 
regular  manner.  The  benefits  of  landed  property  have 
been  imparted  progressively  to  a  numerous  and  prosperous 
class  of  cultivators  by  the  abolition  of  feudal  superiorities, 
by  the  restriction  of  entails  and  special  destination  of 
property,  by  the  deliberate  division  of  estates  between  the 
landlord  and  the  occupier,  on  a  basis,  if  not  always  equitable 
to  the  former,  at  least  patriotic  in  its  motives  and  happy  in 
its  results,  and  by  the  operation  of  rules  of  succession  re- 
producing in  some  instances  and  in  others  adopting  with 
various  modifications,  the  maxims  of  the  French  Code.4  " 

In  Italy,  under  the  principle  of  partible  succession, 
somewhat  modified,  and  through  sale  of  church  lands  and 
the  dismemberment  of  feudal  estates  subject  to  commu- 
nal rights ;  and  in  Russia,  through  the  emancipation  of 
the  serfs  and  their  investiture  with  portions  of  the  estates 
to  which  they  formerly  belonged,  we  have  a  large  and 
increasing  portion  of  the  soil  cultivated  by  its  owners, 
working  for  themselves  and  by  themselves,  receiving  the 
whole  produce  of  the  soil,  subject  only  to  deduction 
through  taxation. 


But  it  is  not  only  the  peasant  proprietor  of  Europe,  the 
"  farmer "  of  America,  who  must  be  excluded  from  the 
wages  class  on  the  ground  that  he  is  not  dependent  on 
another  for  employment.  In  the  same  class  economically, 
so  far  as  the  principles  of  distribution  are  concerned,  are 
large  bodies  of  mechanical  laborers,  artisans,  who  having 
possession  of  the  agencies  and  instrumentalities  of  pro- 

4  Address  of  Lord  Napier  and  Ettrick.  Soc.  Sc.  Transactions,  1879. 


810  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

duction,  are  enabled  to  produce  wealth  by  their  own 
labor,  without  the  consent  of  any  person,  the  product 
being  all  their  own  and  hence  not  subject  to  distribution, 
though  presumably  in  great  part  exchanged  for  the  pro- 
ducts, especially  the  agricultural  products,  of  others. 
These  persons,  again,  receive  no  wages,  are  not  hired. 
They  are  no  more  the  employed  than  they  are  the  em- 
ployers ;  indeed  they  are  neither.  Distribution  has 
nothing  to  do  with  them. 

Adam  Smith  recognized  this  class.  "It  sometimes 
happens,"  he  says,  "  that  a  single  independent  workman 
has  stock  enough  both  to  purchase  the  materials  of  his 
work  and  to  maintain  himself  till  it  be  completed.  He  is 
both  master  and  workman,  and  enjoys  the  whole  produce 
of  his  labor.1 

I  do  not,  for  the  present,  say  that  the  condition  of  this 
class  is  better  or  worse  than  that  of  the  wages  class,  but 
only  that  the  two  classes  stand  in  different  economical 
relations,  and  should  be  treated  separately.  The  self-em- 
ployed laborer  has  still  to  seek  his  market,  and  if  the  mar- 
ket fail  him  he  may  suffer  or  starve  like  the  wage  laborer ; 
but  it  is  a  market  for  his  product  that  he  seeks,  not  for  his 
labor }  and  in  the  pregnant  fact  that  he  has  possession  of 
the  agencies  and  instrumentalities  of  production,  and  may 
work  in  his  place  without  the  leave  or  help  of  any,  is 
found  an  abundant  reason  for  preserving  the  distinction 
expressed  above. 

Closely  allied  to  the  peasant  proprietor  in  many  respect 
economically,  though  differing  widely  in  others,  and  not 
the  less  distinctly  to  be  excluded  from  the  wages  class,  are 
those  tenants,  whether  known  as  ryots  in  Asia  or  meta- 
yers in  Europe,  who  have,  whether  by  law  or  by  impera- 
tive custom,  a  recognized  right  to  the  cultivation  of  soil 
which  they  do  not  own,  upon  the  payment  of  a  fixed  share 

1  Wealth  of  Nations,  I.  69. 


THE  WAGES  CLASS.  211 

of  the  produce.  The  wealth  thus  produced  is,  indeed,  un- 
like that  produced  by  the  classes  previously  described, 
subject  to  distribution,  inasmuch  as  the  owner  of  the  soil 
is  here  entitled  to  participate  in  the  results  of  the  industry ; 
but  the  tenant's  share  is  still  in  no  sense  wages.  He  is  not 
of  the  employed  class ;  he  is  not  dependent  on  the  will 
of  another  for  the  opportunity  to  labor ;  he  has  a  right  to 
work  on  that  particular  body  of  land  and  to  enjoy  the 
fruits  of  his  labor,  subject  only  to  the  due  payment  of  the 
share  of  the  product  going  to  the  landlord — be  the  same 
an  individual  or  the  state.  And  this  is  equally  true  whether 
the  right  of  the  tenant  to  remain  in  occupancy  is  one  fixed 
by  law,  or  only  by  a  custom  which  is  so  distinct  and  im- 
perative as  to  give  a  practical  assurance  of  permanency. 
And  it  is  equally  true  whether  the  amount  of  rent  be  fixed 
by  law,  or  by  a  custom  which  the  owner  so  far  respects  as 
to  put  it  out  of  his  disposition  to  undertake  to  raise  it.1 

The  metayer  system,  under  which  the  landowner  re- 
ceives a  definite  share  of  the  produce,  originally  one-half, 
as  the  term  implies,  but  varying  in  present  usage  from 
one-half  to  two-thirds,  according  to  local  law  or  custom, 
once  prevailed  throughout  the  western  division  of  Conti- 
nental Europe,  Italy,  France,  and  Spain.2  In  France, 

1  "  In  Tuscany,"  writes  Sismondi,  and  the  remark  holds  true  of 
most  parts  of  Italy   where  the  metayer  system  prevails,    "public 
opinion  protects  the  cultivator.    A  proprietor  would  not  dare  to  im- 
pose conditions  unusual  in  the  country,  and  even  in  changing  one 
metayer  for  another  he  alters  nothing  of  the  rent." 

"  In  this  country  (England)  the  cultivator  of  the  soil  and  the  owner 
of  the  soil  are,  as  a  rule,  different  persons  ;  in  other  countries  they  are, 
as  a  rule,  the  same;  or  where  they  are  not  the  same  the  owner  of  the 
eoil  rather  occupies  the  position  of  a  perpetuallessor  or  mortgagee  than 
that  of  a  landlord  whose  contracts  with  his  tenants  are  constantly  lia- 
ble to  revision."— Prof.  Rogers'  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  151. 

2  Prof.  Jones  finds  the  origin  of  the  metayer  system  of  Western 
Europe,  in  Greece,  from  which  it  was  adopted  by  the  Romans,  and  in- 
troduced into  Italy  first,  and  France  and  Spain  afterwards.     Prof. 
Rogers  finds  that  the  metayer  system  was  introduced  quite  generally 


£12  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

since  the  Revolution,  it  has  been  largely  superseded  by 
peasant  proprietorship ;  and  in  Italy,  since  the  unification 
of  the  kingdom,  the  same  process  has  been  going  on, 
though  more  slowly.  A  large  portion  of  the  soil  of  these 
three  countries  is,  however,  still  cultivated  under  this 
tenure. 

The  ryot  system  of  Asia  and  Turkey  in  Europe  is  held 
by  some  economists  to  be  substantially  equivalent  to  per- 
sonal proprietorship ;  by  others  to  be  the  Oriental  equiva- 
lent of  the  metayer  system,  the  taxes,  varying  from  fifty 
upwards  to  perhaps  seventy  per  cent.,  which  the  govern- 
ment levies  on  the  produce,  being  regarded  as  virtually  the 
rent  of  the  land.  The  question  need  not  be  discussed 
here,  for  it  is  evident  that,  whichever  way  it  might  be 
decided,  the  ryot  is  not  a  wage  laborer. 

In  a  very  different  economical  position  is  the  cottar  ten- 
ant, who  is  liable,  on  the  expiry  of  his  longer  or  shorter 
lease,  or  at  the  will  of  the  landlord  in  the  absence  of  a 
lease,  to  have  his  rent  raised  ;  and  on  his  inability  to  re- 
sist or  to  satisfy  such  a  demand,  or  even  from  the  personal 
prejudices  or  preferences  of  the  landlord,  to  be  ejected 
from  his  occupancy ;  yet  we  cannot  designate  his  share 
of  the  product  of  the  soil,  after  deducting  rent,  by  the 
term  wages.  The  condition  of  the  cottar  may  be  better 
than  that  of  the  wage  laborer,  or  it  may  easily  be  worse  ; 
but  worse  or  better,  it  is  certainly  different,  and  results 
from  wholly  different  economical  relations.  As  we  go 
forward  the  unfitness  of  such  a  designation,  if,  indeed, 
there  should  be  any  question  concerning  it,  will  be  made 
to  appear  more  clearly  than  could  be  done  at  present  with- 

into  England  after  the  great  plague  of  1348,  and  prevailed  for  about 
sixty  years,  when  it  was  "  superseded  by  the  growth  of  a  hardy  and 
prosperous  yeomanry,  who  either  purchased  the  land  in  parcels,  or 
bargained  to  work  it  with  their  own  capital,  and  at  a  money  rent." 
Pol.  Econ.,  168, 170.  The  fate  of  these  yeomen  in  England  has  been 
noticed. 


THE  WAGES  CLASS.  21b 

out  an  extensive  excursion  from  the  path  of  our  discus- 
sion ;  but  it  will  perhaps  be  sufficient  at  this  point,  waiv- 
ing objections  from  etymology  and  popular  use,  to  say  that 
it  is  of  the  essence  of  wages  that  they  are  at  stipulated 
rates,  and  therefore  certain  in  amount,  while  the  produce 
of  the  cottar  tenant  is  never  certain,  since  nature  decline? 
to  make  any  stipulation,  and  the  quantity  and  quality  ol 
the  crop  must  always  remain,  up  to  the  moment  of  har- 
vesting, a  matter  of  conjecture. 

The  cottar  tenancy  is  still  very  general  in  Ireland. 
The  soil  is  held  in  small  quantities,1  by  the  great  body  oi 
the  agricultural  laboring  population.* 


We  have  thus  far  insisted  that  only  the  employed 
shall  be  included  in  the  wages  class.  Applying  this  test 
of  dependence  on  others  for  the  opportunity  to  labor,  we 
have  successively  excluded  several  large  bodies  of  laborers, 
constituting  in  the  aggregate  the  vast  majority*  of  the  hu- 
man race.  In  respect  to  the  production  of  most  of  these, 
the  principles  of  distribution  do  not  apply.  In  contem- 
plating their  condition  and  prospects,  we  have  only  to 
consider  the  law  of  production  taken  in  connection  with 
the  law  of  population.  Masters  of  their  own  fate,  econom- 
ically, whether  they  shall  be  happy  or  miserable  will 
depend  [assuming  their  own  industry,  frugality  and  sobri- 
ety], first,  upon  their  habits  in  respect  to  procreation  ; 


1  Of  the  682,237  holdings  in  Ireland,  512,080  are  of  less  value  than 
15£.  a  year  each,  527,000  are  tenancies  at  will. — Statistical  Journal, 
xxxiii,  152. 

9  Day-laborers  in  agriculture  were,  until  recently,  almost  unknown 
in  Ireland.  They  are  now  appearing  in  considerable  numbers. — Les- 
lie's Land  Systems,  etc.  p.  44. 

8  "  The  unhired  laborers  who  are  peasant  cultivators,"  according 
to  Prof.  Jones,  comprised  in  his  day  "probably  two-thirds  of  the  la- 
boring  population  of  the  globe." — Pol.  Econ.,  p.  14, 


2U  THE  WAGES  Q  UESTIOX. 

second,  upon  the  acts  of  their  government,  protecting  them 
or  robbing  them,  as  the  case  may  be,  with  which  political 
economy  has  nothing  to  do ;  and  third,  on  the  kindness 
or  unkindness  of  nature  in  affording  sun  and  shower  in 
due  order  and  proportion,  and  with  this,  again,  political 
economy  has  nothing  to  do. 

We  have  applied  the  test  of  employment.  We  must 
now  apply  other  tests,  still  further  to  reduce  the  range  of 
our  investigation. 

First,  we  count  out  all  those  who,  though  em- 
ployed, are  employed  on  shares.  It  is,  as  has  been  said,  of 
the  essence  of  wages,  that  they  are  stipulated  in  amount. 
In  the  case  of  laborers  working  on  shares,  no  definite 
amount  is  stipulated  ;  but  only  the  proportion  of  an  uncer- 
tain product  which  shall  go  to  the  laborer.  His  remunera- 
tion, therefore,  becomes  greater  with  good  luck  and  favor- 
able weather,  or  smaller  with  the  reverse.  He  shares  with 
the  employer  the  risk  of  bad  seasons  and  accidental  loss ; 
and  is  entitled  to  participate  in  all  the  advantage  of  every 
fortunate  venture.  In  other  words,  he  is  the  partner  of 
his  employer,  dependent  indeed,  with  no  voice  in  the  man- 
agement, and  perhaps  on  hard  terms,  but  a  partner  still 
in  the  distribution  of  the  product;  a  condition  which  is 
strongly  contrasted  with  that  of  the  wage-laborers  proper, 
who  have  their  remuneration  at  fixed  rates,  receiving  no 
less  if  the  business  be  unsuccessful  (except  in  the  rare  and 
not  anticipated  event  of  bankruptcy) ;  and  receiving  no 
more,  however  great  the  returns  of  the  industry. 

The  class  of  hired  laborers  working  on  shares  is  not 
large,  but  it  is  desirable  that  it  should  be  clearly  separated 
and  excluded  from  the  wage  class  for  scientific  precision.. 
The  share  principle  is  applied  somewhat  extensively  in. 
mining,  but  its  chief  application  is  on  the  sea,  where  it 
becomes  of  great  importance  to  interest  all  hands  in  the 
success  of  the  enterprise.  In  fishing  vessels  and  whalers 
of  almost  all  nationalities,  and  with  the  Greeks  even  in 


THE  WAGES  CLASS.  215 

the  general  merchant  service,  the  crews  take  shares  in  the 
venture. 

Secondly,  it  is  my  view  that  another  and  a  very  large 
body  of  laborers  should  be  excluded  from  the  wages  clusa 
in  treating  the  questions  of  distribution,  though  the  term 
wages  is  applied,  and  with  entire  propriety,  to  the  remu- 
neration of  this  class  of  persons,  and  its  exclusion  may 
not  meet  the  general  assent  which  I  trust  will  be  accorded 
to  the  exclusions  previously  effected. 

What,  then,  is  the  class  thus  to  be  excluded  against 
common  usage  ?  It  includes  those  persons  who  are  defined, 
by  Prof.  Jones1  as  paid,  or  supported,  out  of  the  revenues 
of  their  employers.  I  deem  the  difference  between  this 
class,  which  it  is  proposed  throughout  the  further  course 
of  this  work  to  call  the  SALARY  or  STIPEND  class,  and  that 
which  I  shall  call  the  WAGES  class,  to  be  not  only  sufficiently 
clear  to  justify  the  economist  in  giving  to  the  former  a 
distinctive  name,  but  so  important  in  its  bearings  on  the 
relation  of  persons  of  that  class  to  their  employers,  and  on 
their  claim  to  a  share  of  distributed  wealth,  as  to  render  it 
imperative  to  treat  them  separately. 

The  domestic  servant  affords,  perhaps,  the  best  illustra- 
tion, for  present  purposes,  of  the  salary  or  stipend  class. 
He  is  not  employed  as  a  means  to  his  master's  profit.  His 
master's  income  is  not  due  in  any  part  to  his  employment; 
on  the  contrary,  that  income  is  first  acquired,  or  its  acqui- 
sition reasonably  assured ;  and  in  the  amount  of  the  in- 
come is  determined  whether  the  servant  shall  be  employed 
or  not,  while  to  the  full  extent  of  that  employment  the 
income  is  diminished.  As  Adam  Smith  expresses  it,  "a 
man  grows  rich  by  employing  a  multitude  of  manufac- 
turers;  he  grows  poor  by  maintaining  a  multitude  of 
menial  servants.''  2 


»  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  420. 

•  Wealth  of  Nations,  I,  332. 


210  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

The  case  ol  the  wage  laborer  is  different.  He  is  em- 
ployed with  a  view  to  his  master's  profit ;  the  master's 
income  is  the  result  of  such  employment  of  labor;  and, 
with  the  exercise  of  due  judgment,  that  income  will  be 
greater  by  reason  of  the  employment,  within  the  limits  of 
his  productive  capacity,  of  each  additional  man.  "  Though 
the  manufacturer  has  his  wages  advanced  to  him  by  his 
master,  he  in  reality  costs  him  no  expense,  the  whole 
value  of  those  wages  being  generally  restored,  together 
with  a  profit,  in  the  improved  value  of  the  subject  upon 
which  his  labor  is  bestowed.  But  the  maintenance  of  a 
menial  servant  is  never  restored."  l 

The  expectation  of  profits,  be  it  observed,  furnishes  the 
test  for  discriminating  the  wages  class  from  the  stipend  or 
salary  class.  It  is  not  necessary  that  the  profit  expected 
in  the  employment  of  persons  of  the  former  class  should 
always  be  realized  ;  nay,  in  a  given  case,  actual  loss  may 
result  without  changing  the  character  of  the  service.  But 
unless  the  reason  for  the  employment  is  found  in  the  ex- 
pectation of  a  profit  to  the  employer  out  of  the  production 
in  which  the  laborer  is  to  be  engaged,  we  do  not  find  in 
such  employment  the  true  sign  of  the  wages  class.  Hence 
we  may  broadly  say,  No  profits,  no  wages. 


Let  us  recapitulate.  "We  have,  first,  excluded  the  em- 
ploying class  ;  second,  all  who,  having  possession  of  the 
agencies  and  instrumentalities  of  production,  whether 
agricultural  or  mechanical,  are  not  dependent  on  others 
for  the  opportunity  to  produce ;  third,  those  who,  though 
not  owning  land,  lease  it,  whether  under  the  protection  of 
law  or  subject  to  all  the  hardships  of  competition.  These 
successive  exclusions  leave  us  the  employed  class,  whether 
in  agriculture  or  manufactures.  From  this  we  further  ex. 

1  Wealth  of  Nations. 


THE  WAGES  CLASS.  217 

elude  all  who  produce  on  shares,  and  all  who  are  paid  01 
subsisted  out  of  the  revenues  of  their  employers.  We 
have  left  the  wages  class  proper,  including  all  persons  who 
are  employed  in  production  with  a  view  to  the  profit  of 
their  employers,  and  are  paid  at  stipulated  rates.  This  ia 
the  class  whose  economical  position  and  interests  it  is  pro- 
posed here  to  discuss.  "With  such  limitations  as  have  been 
imposed,  the  wages  question  is  not  of  that  wide  interest 
which  is  given  to  it  when  pretty  much  the  whole  human 
race  is  brought  within  its  scope ;  but  it  may  be  that  by  this 
limitation  our  inquiries  will  become  more  fruitful,  i 

But  though  the  wage  class  includes  but  a  fraction  of 
humanity,  it  is  perhaps  as  large  as  can  be  comfortably 
treated  in  a  work  of  a  single  volume.  Of  the  eighty  mil- 
lions of  English-speaking  people,  three-fourths  probably, 
two-thirds  certainly,  subsist  on  wages. 

It  may  be  well  here  to  anticipate  a  hostile  criticism.  It 
may  be  said  that  we  have  made  our  analysis  of  the  labor- 
ing population  an  essential  part  of  our  theory  of  wages, 
while  yet,  in  fact,  no  inconsiderable  number  of  persons 
sustain  economical  relations  which  refuse  to  submit  to  such 
a  classification.  Thus  there  are  persons  belonging  alter- 
nately to  the  wages  and  to  the  stipend  class,  now  employed 
for  profit,  now  paid  out  of  revenue.  In  like  manner  there 
are  persons  in  every  community  who  are  employed  as 
hired  laborers  during  portions  of  the  year,  while  at  other 
seasons  they  are  engaged  in  production  on  their  own  ac- 
count in  their  own  shops  or  on  their  own  small  holdings 
of  land. 

To  this  it  may  be  replied  that  while  the  recognition  of 

»  "  The  (third)  class  of  hired  laborers,  paid  from  capital,  has  so  ex- 
clusively met  the  eyes  and  occupied  the  thoughts  of  English  writers 
on  wages,  that  it  has  led  them  into  some  serious  and  very  unfor- 
tunate mistakes  as  to  the  nature,  extent,  and  formation  of  the  funda 
out  of  which  the  laboring  population  of  the  globe  is  fed,  and,  as  usual, 
they  have  misled  foreign  writers."— R.  Jones,  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  15 


218  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

vast  bodies  of  undistributed  wealth  which  are  yet  subject 
to  exchange,  is  here  asserted  to  be  necessary  to  a  right 
understanding  of  some  of  the  phenomena  of  wages,  the 
validity  of  this  position  does  not  depend  on  the  possibility 
of  an  exact  enumeration  of  the  several  classes  defined. 
On  this  point  I  cannot  do  better  than  quote  from  the 
admirable  chapter  on  Economic  Definition,  which  Prof. 
Cairnes,  just  before  his  lamented  death,  added  to  his  treat 
ise  on  the  Logical  Method  of  Political  Economy. 

"  In  controversies  about  definitions,  nothing  is  more 
common  than  to  meet  objections  founded  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  attribute  on  which  a  definition  turns,  ought  to 
be  one  which  does  not  admit  of  degrees.  This  being 
assumed,  the  objector  goes  on  to  show  that  the  facts  or 
objects  placed  within  the  boundary  line  of  some  definition 
to  which  objection  is  taken,  cannot,  in  their  extreme 
instances  be  clearly  discriminated  from  those  which  lie 
without.  Some  equivocal  example  is  then  taken,  and  the 
framer  of  the  definition  is  challenged  to  say  in  which 
category  it  is  to  be  placed.  2sTow  it  seems  to  me  that  an 
objection  of  this  kind  ignores  the  inevitable  conditions 
under  which  a  scientific  nomenclature  is  constructed,  alike 
in  political  economy  and  in  all  the  positive  sciences.  In 
such  sciences,  nomenclature,  and  therefore  definition,  is 
based  on  classification,  and  to  admit  of  degrees  is  the  char- 
acter of  all  natural  facts.  As  has  been  said,  there  are  no  hard 
lines  in  nature.  Between  the  animal  and  vegetable  king- 
doms, for  example,  where  is  the  line  to  be  drawn  ?  .  .  . 
It  is,  therefore,  no  valid  objection  to  a  classification,  nor 
consequently,  to  the  definition  founded  upon  it,  that 
instances  may  be  found  which  fall,  or  seem  to  fall,  on  our 
lines  of  demarcation.  This  is  inevitable  in  the  nature  of 
things.  But  this  notwithstanding,  the  classification,  and 
therefore  the  definition,  is  a  good  one,  if,  in  those  instances 
which  do  not  fall  on  the  line,  the  distinctions  marked  ly 
the  definition  are  such  as  it  is  important  to  mark,  such 


THE  WAGES  CLASS.  210 

that  the  recognition  of  them  will  help  the  inquirer  for 
ward  toward  the  desiderated  goal." l 

THE   EXCHANGE   OF   DISTRIBUTED   FOB  UNDISTRIBUTED' 
WEALTH. 

Bur  it  may  be  asked,  what  avails  it  to  show  that  the 
wages  classes,  instead  of  being  co-extensive  with  the  labor 
class,  as  is  assumed  in  the  current  theories  respecting 
wages,  is  only  a  small  fraction  of  it,  communicating  with 
those  other  great  masses  of  labor,  only  in  the  exchange  of 
its  completed  and  marketed  products  ?  How  can  this  fact 
bear  on  the  question,  whether  wages  may  be  increased 
actually  and  permanently?  Are  not  wages  governed  by 
exactly  the  same  principles  as  if  the  wages  class  constituted 
the  whole  of  the  labor  class,  instead  of  one-fifth,  one-sixth, 
or  one-seventh  ? 

I  answer,  in  the  first  place,  that  if  the  wages  class  is 
only  a  fraction  of  the  labor  class,  that  fact  should  be  clearly 
set  forth  in  discussions  of  the  wages  question,  and  the 
extent  of  the  interests  involved  should  be,  as  nearly  as 
possible,  indicated.  The  reader  has  a  right  to  know 
whether  the  principles  laid  down  govern  the  fortunes  of 
substantially  the  whole  human  race,  or  of  only  one-fifth  or 
one-seventh  of  it.  The  confusion  of  the  labor  question 
with  the  wages  question,  is  as  unnecessary  as  it  is  unscien- 
tific. 

But  secondly,  I  answer  that  the  fact  of  the  production 
of  a  vast  body  of  undistributed  wealth,  portions  of  which 
are  subject  to  exchange  with  distributed  wealth,  may,  and 
does,  powerfully  affect  the  condition  of  the  wages  class. 

Let  us  discriminate.  So  far  as  undistributed  wealth, 
that  is,  wealth  which  is  produced  entire  by  one  person,3 

1  Log.  Meth.  Pol.  Econ.  p.  139-141. 
1  p.  4. 

•  With  the  assistance,  it  may  be,  of  his  wife  and  minor  children 
whose  labor  is,  in  the  eye  of  the  law,  his  own. 


220  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

who  owns  the  whole  product,  is  not  exchanged  but  is  con- 
sumed by  the  producer,  as  is  the  case  with  probably  the 
major  part  of  such  wealth,  the  world  over,  no  effect  on  the 
wages  class  can  be  wrought  thereby.  That  wealth,  being 
neither  distributed  nor  exchanged,  neither  its  production 
nor  its  consumption  concerns  other  classes  of  producers. 
But  so  far  as  undistributed  wealth  is  exchanged  against 
distributed  wealth,  there  is  a  distinct  possibility,  therein, 
of  gain  or  loss  to  the  wages  class. 

It  was  remarked  in  our  first  chapter,  that  it  is  as  truly 
impossible  to  explain  all  the  phenomena  of  wages,  with- 
out reference  to  this  outside  body  of  undistributed  wealth, 
as  it  would  be  to  account  for  the  Gulf  Stream,  without 
reference  to  the  colder  waters  between  which,  and  over 
which,  it  flows.  We  are  now  in  a  position  to  justify  this 
remark.  We  have  seen  (chap,  x,)  that  the  theory  that  all 
burdens  are  divided  and  all  benefits  diffused  equally 
throughout  industrial  society,  rests  on  the  assumption  of 
perfect  competition.  Industrial  society  is  taken,  for  the 
purposes  of  this  reasoning,  as  composed  of  economical  atoms, 
absolutely  equivalent,  possessing  complete  mobility  and 
elasticity.  Given  this  condition,  all  that  Bastiat  has 
claimed  for  the  economical  harmonies,  is  happily  true. 
The  laborer  and  the  employer  feel  the  force  of  competition 
equally,  and  neither  has  a  natural  advantage  over  the  other. 
The  laborer  feels  the  force  of  competition  alike  as  seller  of 
labor  and  as  buyer  of  commodities.  Labor  and  capital 
flow  freely  to  their  best  market.  The  highest  price  which 
any  employer  can  afford  to  give  will  be  the  lowest  which 
any  laborer  will  consent  to  receive;  while,  as  between  any 
two  departments  of  production,  the  advantages  enjoyed  by 
the  laborers,  capitalists  and  employees  engaged  will  be 
absolutely  equalized. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  evident  that  the  least  vis- 
cosity of  material,  the  slightest  idiosyncrasy  of  structure 
musty  in  a  degree,  defer,  if  not  entirely  defeat^  the  tend- 


THE  WAGES  GLASS.  221 

ency  to  the  propagation,  through  economic  media,  of  any 
economic  impulse.  Just  so  far  as  men  differ  in  their 
industrial  quality,  or  are  diversely  organized  in  natural 
or  artificial  groups,  just  so  far  there  is  the  possibility  that 
one  person  or  class  of  persons  may  be  disproportionately 
affected  by  an  economic  force  ;  may  receive  more  or  receive 
less  of  the  benefit,  may  suffer  less  or  suffer  more  of  the 
burden,  than  his  or  their  just  distributive  share. 

Now  the  division  of  the  body  of  laborers  into  the 
employed  and  the  non-employed,  or  independent  work- 
men, is  a  great  structural  fact  which  cannot  but  profoundly 
influence  the  propagation  of  economic  impulses.  Doubt- 
less there  are  compensations  in  the  condition  of  the  wages 
class;  while  nothing  could  exceed  the  misery  of  whole 
nations  of  peasant  proprietors  or  tenant  occupiers,  where 
the  government  fails  to  render  the  protection  to  which  the 
subject  is  entitled,  or  where,  as  too  often  happens,  the 
government  becomes  the  plunderer  of  the  people.  Yet, 
through  all,  we  discern  in  the  fact  that  the  wages  class  are 
dependent  on  others  for  the  opportunity  and  the  means  to 
labor,  not  having,  in  their  own  right,  possession  of  the 
agencies  and  instrumentalities  of  production,  the  possibil- 
ity of  deep  and  lasting  detriment. 

I  have  already  expressed  the  opinion,  in  criticism  of 
Prof.  Cairnes'  doctrine  of  non-competing  groups,  that  com- 
petition never  becomes  nil,  for  practical  purposes.  But  let 
us  for  the  moment  inquire  what  would  be  the  effects,  did 
the  employed  and  the  non-employed  constitute  two  great 
non-competing  groups  ;  that  is,  did  not  the  employed  ever 
become  an  independent  workman;  or  the  independent 
workman  ever  seek  employment.  We  will  also  suppose 
competition  to  be  perfect  within  the  employed  class. 

It  is  evident  that  upon  these  assumptions  any  economi- 
cal impulse,  for  good  or  for  evil,  which  should  be  experi- 
enced anywhere  in  the  latter  class,  would  extend  at  once 
and  without  loss  through  the  whole  body  of  the  employed, 


222  TEE  WA  GES  Q  UESTION. 

that  the  burden  would  be  divided  or  the  benefit  diffused 
among  the  entire  mass,  action  and  reaction  continuing  un- 
til equilibrium  was  everywhere  restored.  But  this  im- 
pulse would  not  be  propagated  across  the  dividing  line 
between  the  employed  and  the  non-employed.  The  econo- 
mical movement  would  cease  in  this  direction  as  abruptly 
as  a  vein  of  gold  stops  at  a  new  geologic  formation.  For 
good  or  for  evil,  the  non-employed  would  feel  no  econo- 
mical sympathy  with  the  employed.  Each  group  would 
meet  its  own  fate,  individually,  by  itself.  Certain  "  ex- 
changing proportions  "  would  be  established  for  the  sur- 
plus products  of  the  two  groups ;  a  scale  of  relative  prices 
would  be  reached  by  trade  between  them ;  but  so  long  as 
labor  was  not  free  to  flow  across  the  line  of  demarcation 
there  would  not  be  even  a  tendency  to  the  equalization  of 
the  wages  of  the  employed  to  the  average  production  of 
the  independent  workman. 

Now,  as  has  been  said,  there  is  no  such  utter  failure  of 
competition  as  is  here  assumed  for  the  purposes  of  illustra- 
tion. The  employed  do  come,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  to 
be  independent  workmen ;  independent  workmen  do 
come  under  employment.  The  facility  with  which  these 
interchanges  are  made  depends  much  upon  the  nature  of 
special  industries,  much  upon  the  character  of  the  individ- 
ual workman,  much  upon  the  state  of  legislation  and  the 
social  condition  of  the  country.  In  some  lands  the  move- 
ment across  the  line  dividing  the  employed  and  the  non- 
employed  is  very  free,  many  laborers  alternating  between 
their  own  little  farms  or  shops,  where  they  work  for  them- 
selves by  themselves,  receiving  all  advantages  and  suffer 
ing  all  losses,  and  the  larger  estates  or  factories  where  they 
come  under  direction  and  control,  and  receive  wages  at 
stipulated  rates.  In  other  lands  the  transition  is  slow  and 
painful ;  in  some  it  can  scarcely  be  said  to  be  effected  at 
all. 1  On  the  whole,  it  is  notorious  that  interchanges  be- 

1  "  No  English  agricultural  laborer,  in  his  most  sanguine  dreams 


THE  WAGES  CLASS.  228 

tween  the  two  groups  are  comparatively  rare ;  the  great 
mass  of  the  employed  never  have  the  choice  whether  they 
will  set  up  for  themselves ;  they  abide  in  their  lot  and 
share,  because  they  have  no  resource,  the  fortune  of  their 
class,  be  that  good  or  evil.  The  division  we  have  indi- 
cated remains  incontestibly  the  greatest  structural  fact  in 
modern  industrial  society,  telling  powerfully  upon  the 
rate  and  direction  in  which  economic  impulses  shall  be 
propagated. 

If  this  be  so,  and  I  do  not  look  to  see  it  questioned  by 
any  one,  then  there  clearly  is  the  possibility  that  one  of 
these  groups  may  profit  at  the  expense  of  the  other,  since 
the  only  security  which  could  exist  for  their  sharing 
equally  the  benefits  and  burdens  of  production  would  be 
found  in  the  unimpeded  interchange  of  labor.  "Which  of 
the  two  is  more  likely  to  be  the  gainer  in  the  exchange  of 
its  marketed  products,  whether  it  be  the  independent  work- 
man who  has  possession  of  the  means  and  materials  of 
production,  who  can  create  wealth  in  his  own  name  and 
right,  and  has  to  ask  no  man's  leave  to  labor,  or  the  em- 
ployed workman,  will  more  clearly  appear  the  further  we 
carry  our  discussion  of  the  conditions  of  the  wages  class  in 
modern  industrial  society. 

has  the  vision  of  occupying,  still  less  of  possessing,  land." — Rogers' 
Hist,  of  Agr.  and  Prices,  I,  693. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE   CAPITALIST   CLASS :    RETURNS   OF   CAPITAL  I    RENT   AND 
INTEREST. 

OF  capital  it  is  not  necessary  to  discuss  here  either  the 
origin  or  the  office.  Many  economists  carefully  exclude 
land  from  the  lists  of  capital.  What  Ricardo  calls  "  the 
original  and  indestructible 1  powers  of  the  soil,"  not  being 
the  creation  of  labor,  and  commanding,  as  they  do,  for 
their  possessor,  an  annual  remuneration,  over  and  above 
the  proper  returns  of  labor  (as  determined  by  the  yield  of 
the  poorest  soils  under  cultivation),  are,  these  writers  hold, 
not  in  the  nature  of  capital. 

But  whatever  be  the  economical  nature  or  the  social 
justification  of  rent,  the  facts  that  land  almost  everywhere 
bears  its  price  proportioned  to  this  annual  income  ;  that  a 
great  part  of  all  the  land  in  possession  to-day  in  civilized 
countries  was  actually  acquired  by  purchase,  through  the 
payment  of  undoubted  capital ;  that  this  interchange  of 
fixed  and  circulating  capital  is  constantly  taking  place,  land 
always  practically  having  its  price  in  denominations  of 
capital,  capital  surely  commanding  the  use  or  fee  of  land ; 
and  finally  that  no  small  part,  often  by  far  the  greatest 
part,  of  the  selling  price  of  land  represents,  on  any  theory 
of  rent,  the  actual  investment  of  capital  merged  indistin- 
guishably  with  the  original  productive  powers  of  the  soil, 
these  facts  justify  me,  I  think,  for  all  present  purposes,  in 
embracing  alike  the  proprietors  of  land  and  the  owners  of 

1  Bicardo's  theory  of  rent  applies  to  land  only  as  it  is  assumed  to  be 


THE  RETURNS  OF  CAPITAL.  225 

other  forms  of  wealth  which  may  be  used  productively,  in 
one  capital-class. 

Capital,  then,  whether  in  land  or  in  some  other  form,  if 
it  be  emploj^ed  productively,  yields  a  return  to  its  owner 
over  and  above  the  remuneration  of  the  labor  applied. 
The  laws  which  govern  these  returns  of  capital  it  is  not 
necessary  to  discuss  here.  My  only  concern  with  the 
capital  class  is  to  define  its  membership  and  ascertain  how 
far  that  coincides  with  the  membership  of  the  employing 
class. 

But,  first,  a  definition.  When  capital  is  employed  re- 
productively  by  the  owner,  the  generic  term,  returns,  suffi- 
ciently describes  the  increase  of  production  effected  there- 
by. When  capital  is  employed  by  a  person  not  the  owner, 
"returns"  still  describe  the  increased  product;  but  the 
special  terms,  rent  and  interest,  come  into  use  to  charac- 
terize the  sums  paid  out  of  those  returns  to  the  owner.  I 
say  "  out  of  those  returns,"  for  commonly  rent  and  interest 
are  something  less  than  the  amount  by  which  the  product 
has  been  enhanced,  otherwise  it  would  not  ordinarily  be 
worth  the  while  to  borrow  and  become  responsible  for  the 
capital  so  applied,  though  it  may  happen,  and  not  infre- 
quently does,  that  the  desire  of  the  borrower  (I  use  the 
term  here  generically,  to  include  the  occupier  of  land)  to 
relieve  himself  of  dependence  on  an  employer,  by  coming 
into  possession  himself  of  the  agencies  and  instrumentali- 
ties of  production,  may  lead  him  to  pay  more,  as  interest 
or  rent,  than  the  returns  of  capital,  measured  by  the  ex- 
cess of  the  product  over  the  value  of  his  labor  expressed  in 
wages  at  current  rates. 

It  seems  to  me  best  that  the  words  rent  and  interest 
should  only  be  used  where  capital  is  actually  leased  or 
loaned.  There  is,  indeed,  highly  respectable  authority  for 

unimproved.  Differences  of  fertility  wrought  by  actual  applications 
of  capital,  are  to  be  compensated  on  tlie  same  principles  as  invest- 
ments of  equal  safety  and  permanence. 


225  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

saying  of  a  man  cultivating  his  own  land,  that  he  pays 
rent  to  himself,  or  of  one  using  his  own  circulating  capital, 
that  \\epays  interest  to  himself.  But  it  is  better  to  avoid 
all  such  strained  uses  of  words  which  have  a  precise  mean- 
ing, by  which  they  fill  an  important  place  in  economical 
terminology.  Let  the  returns  of  capital  remain  the  generic 
term,  while  rent  and  interest  are  employed  only  with  re- 
epect  to  payments  for  capital  actually  leased  or  loaned. 

Who,  then,  constitute  the  capital  class  ?  Who  receive 
the  returns  of  capital  ? 

With  that  vast  body  of  property,  real  and  personal, 
which  is  employed  in  production  by  peasant  proprietors, 
or  occupiers  of  land  under  a  practically  indefeasible  ten- 
ure, whether  guaranteed  by  law  or  imperative  custom,  this 
treatise  has  nothing  to  do,  except  that  it  may  be  noted  in 
passing  that  those  who  speak  of  the  capitalist  as  the  em- 
ployer of  labor,  are  obliged  to  regard  these  peasant  pro- 
prietors or  occupiers  as  their  own  employers,  another 
instance  of  a  perversion  of  economical  terms  made  neces- 
sary by  a  false  analysis. 

If  we  turn  to  England  and  Scotland,  where  the  soil  is 
cultivated  under  farmer-rents,  we  do  not  find  the  owners 
of  land  employing  agricultural  labor  to  any  considerable 
extent,  except  in  the  ornamentation  of  grounds,  payment 
for  which  is  made  out  of  revenues  already  acquired,  and 
the  sums  so  paid  are  hence,  according  to  our  definition,  not 
wages,  but  salary  or  stipend.  Where  agricultural  laborers 
are  employed  for  profit  in  England,  it  is  almost  universally 
by  a  middle- man,  a  farmer,  who,  on  the  one  hand,  leases 
the  land  from  the  owner,  and  on  the  other  agrees  with  the 
laborer  for  his  work,  by  the  year,  the  month,  or  the  day, 
obligating  himself  to  pay  landlord  and  laborer  at  fixed 
rates,  and  looking  to  his  own  enterprise  and  economy  to 
secure  his  own  remuneration  out  of  a  product  which 
varies  continually  with  good  or  ill  fortune,  with  good  or 
ill  management.  The  English  farmer  is,  however,  almost 


THE  CAPITALIST  GLASS.  227 

necessarily  the  owner  of  circulating  capital  to  some  ex- 
tent, not  only  to  guarantee  the  landlord's  rent  and  the 
laborers'  wages,  but  also  to  purchase  live  stock,  seed,  tools, 
and  machinery,  and  to  make  advance  of  wages  while  the 
crops  are  growing.  But  he  is  not  necessarily  the  owner 
of  circulating  capital  to  anything  like  the  extent  to  which 
be  uses  it ;  good  character  and  a  reputation  for  business 
capacity  will  enable  him,  under  the  modern  organization 
of  credit,  to  command  the  use  of  far  more  than  he  actually 
possesses. 

In  France,  peasant  proprietorship  gives  form  to  the 
agriculture  of  the  country ;  but  even  under  the  old  regime 
the  seignior-capitalist  did  not  directly  employ  labor,  and 
Arthur  Young  pokes  fun  at  the  great  lords  who,  desiring 
the  reputation  of  cultivating  the  soil,  when  that  had  be- 
come a  fashion  in  France,  let  out  on  shares  portions  of 
their  estates  immediately  about  the  chateau !  In  the 
United  States  the  land  is,  as  a  rule,  held  either  by  persons 
corresponding  industrially  to  the  "  peasant  proprietors  "  of 
Europe,  but  rejecting  that  term,  and  calling  themselves 
very  inappropriately  "  fanners,"  or  by  larger  operators 
who  hold  the  fee  of  the  land  and  cultivate  it  by  hired 
labor.  Land  leased  for  purposes  of  agriculture  is  here 
highly  exceptional.  But  while  the  legal  owner  of  the 
land  is  thus  in  a  considerable  degree  the  employer  of 
labor,  it  is  to  a  very  large  extent  capital  borrowed  on  note 
or  mortgage  which  enables  him  to  eke  out  the  purchase 
money  of  the  "  farm,"  to  stock  it,  and  to  pay  wages  in 
anticipation  of  the  crop. 

We  thus  see  that  even  in  agriculture,  where  the  effects 
of  lordship  still  survive,  the  capitalist  is  not  necessarily  the 
employer  of  labor,  nor  is  the  employer  of  labor  limited  in 
his  operations  by  the  extent  of  his  personal  ownership  of 
capital.  But  if  we  turn  to  the  department  of  mechanical 
industry,  in  which  lordship  never  had  existence,  and  aL 
that  has  survived  from  feudal  times  (the  trades  unions,  as 


238  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

the  illegitimate  successors  of  the  ancient  guilds)  is  antago- 
nistic to  the  employer's  authority ;  a  department  which  is 
eminently  the  field  of  "  new  men,"  and  in  which  the  hered- 
itary principle  is  reduced  to  a  minimum,  we  find  the  as- 
sumption that  the  capitalist  is  the  employer,  the  employer 
the  capitalist,  monstrously  unreal.  True  it  is  that  the 
employer  should  be  a  capitalist,  that  he  should  have  posses- 
sion of  some  accumulations,  not  only  to  guarantee  1  the 
loans  he  contracts  and  the  wages  he  becomes  responsible 
for,  but  also  to  steady  his  own  operations,  lest  he  should 
act  as  one  who  has  everything  to  gain  and  nothing  to  lose  ; 
true  it  is  that  able  employers  come  to  own  an  increasing 
share  of  the  capital  used  in  their  increasing  business  ;  and 
that  the  larger  their  accumulations  become,  the  greater  the 
freedom  and  strength  with  which  they  conduct  business. 
Yet  it  still  remains  that  the  employer  is  not  an  employer 
because  he  is  a  capitalist,  or  in  proportion  as  he  is  a  capi- 
talist. Of  capitalists  under  our  modern  organization  of  in- 
dustry, but  a  small  minority  employ  labor  ;  of  employers 
few  but  use  capital  far  in  excess  of  what  they  own.  More- 
over the  employer  who  owns  little  capital ;  the  employer 
who  owns  much,  and  the  employer  who  owns  perchance 
all  he  employs,  are  not  to  be  distinguished  in  their  indus- 
trial attitude  and  relations,  or  in  the  nature,  or,  generally 
we  may  say,  in  the  extent  of  their  operations ;  but  differ 
only  in  the  ease,  freedom,  and  security  with  which  they 
conduct  their  respective  businesses.  And  that  difference  is, 
in  ordinary  times,  not  very  noticeable.  One  employer,  in- 
deed, is  down  on  the  books  of  the  Commercial  Agency 
with  A  five  times  repeated,  and  his  paper  is  known  as 

1  Mr.  Ricardo  makes  this  distinction  in  respect  to  the  banker  him- 
self. "  The  distinctive  function  of  the  banker  begins  as  soon  as  he 
uses  the  money  of  others."  Yet,  though  it  is  the  use  of  other  people's 
money  that  characterizes  the  banker,  it  is  important  that  he  should 
be  known  or  supposed  to  have  money  of  his  own  to  afford  guaranty 
of  his  good  faith  and  prudence. 


THE  CAPITALIST  CLASS.  229 

*  gilt  edged."  Another  must  be  content  to  be  rated  lower 
by  the  Agency,  live  smaller,  pay  a  little  more  interest  on 
loans,  run  around  a  little  more  lively  before  the  close  of 
banking  hours,  and  be  served  after  his  betters.  But  the 
outside  world  sees  very  little  difference,  granting  them 
equality  of  business  ability,  in  their  employment  of  labor 
or  conduct  of  affairs. 

Who,  then,  are  the  capitalists  who  are  not  employers  of 
labor  ?  I  answer,  first,  those  who  by  age,  sex,  or  infirm- 
ity are  disabled  from  active  operations ;  men  retired  from 
business,  women  of  all  ages,  children  and  young  persons  of 
both  sexes,  the  crippled  and  incompetent  for  whom  provis- 
ion has  been  made  ;  these,  in  the  order  of  nature,  own  a 
large  part  of  the  property  of  the  world.  If  their  wealth  is 
in  their  own  hands,  they  know  their  limitations,  and  do 
not  undertake  to  employ  it  personally ;  if  their  wealth  is 
held  for  them,  the  responsibilities  of  the  trustee  or  guar- 
dian are  incompatible  with  the  ventures  of  manufacture  or 
trade.  Secondly,  those  who,  from  dignity  and  love  of 
leisure,  as  is  especially  the  case  with  men  of  inherited 
means,  are  indisposed  to  increase  their  store  by  active  ex- 
ertions, but  live  upon  their  income ;  and  those  who  are 
engaged  in  professions  1  which  do  not  allow  the  invest- 
ment of  their  earnings.  Thirdly,  the  laboring  classes, 
whether  receiving  wages  or  salaries,  who  are  able,  even 
out  of  scanty  earnings,  to  make  savings  which  they  are, 
from  the  nature  of  their  industrial  position,  unable  to 
apply  personally  to  production.  Small  as  are  the  individ- 
ual contributions  of  this  class  to  the  loanable  capital  of  a 
community,  the  statistics  of  the  savings  banks  show  what 
is  the  virtue  of  a  large  multiplier.  There  might  be  added, 
perhaps  should  be  added,  to  the  vast  aggregate  of  capital 
thus  constituted,  the  accumulating  profits  of  industries 

1  E.  g.,  Lawyers,  physicians,  clergymen,  architects,  engineers,  gov 
eminent  officials,  and  the  like. 


£30  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

which  are  already  fall  of  capital  up  to  the  point  of  "  di> 
minishing  returns,"  where  overflow  must  take  place  into 
newer  branches  of  production.  Thus  no  small  part  of  the 
net  annual  profits  of  agriculture  in  Somersetshire  and 
Hampshire  go  up  to  London  to  be  loaned  to  the  manufac- 
turers of  Yorkshire  and  Lancashire  ; 1  while  in  the  United 
States  the  current  is  reversed,  and  the  manufacturing  divi- 
dends of  New  England  go  to  the  West  to  be  invested  in 
agriculture,  which  can  still  afford  to  pay  eight,  ten,  and 
even  twelve  per  cent.  Here  again  we  have  a  large  body 
of  capital,  which,  though  the  owners  of  it  are  employers 
in  some  branch  of  industry,  yet  goes  to  swell  the  aggregate 
of  loanable  capital  to  which  employers  who  are  not  capi- 
talists, or  who  wish  to  be  employers  beyond  the  extent 
which  their  own  capital  permits,  may  resort  under  the 
modern  organization  of  credit. 


It  is  so  clear  that  the  membership  of  the  capitalist  clasa 
is  not  coincident  with  that  of  the  employing  class,  not- 
withstanding the  use  by- the  economists  of  the  word  capi- 
talist to  signify  the  employer  of  labor  ;  and  the  subject  of 
the  relation  of  the  capitalist  to  the  employer  is,  as  far  as  I 
have  occasion  to  consider  it,  so  simple,  that  I  should  not 
have  devoted  a  separate  chapter  to  this  class,  but  have  de- 
fined it  in  remarks  introductory  of  the  employing  class 
proper,  were  it  not  that  I  desired  to  emphasize  this  my 
difference  with  the  text-book  writers ;  and  secondly  and 
chiefly,  that  it  becomes  necessary  for  me  to  take  exception, 
to  the  use,  by  the  same  writers,  of  the  word  Profits,  an 
exception  best  taken  under  the  present  title. 

My  exception  is  not  on  linguistic  grounds.  Profits,  so 
far  as  the  etymology  of  the  word  goes,  might  include  in- 
terest, rent,  wages,  and  the  gain  derived  from  the  conduct 

1  Bagehot's  Lombard  Street,  p.  12. 


DEFINITION  OF  PROFITS.  231 

of  business,  any  one  or  all  of  these.  The  economists  gen- 
erally  use  the  word  to  express  the  returns  of  capital.1  I 
propose  to  express  by  it  the  gains  of  the  employing  class, 
letting  the  returns  of  capital  stand  as  previously  explained 
in  this  chapter.  By  what,  then,  do  the  economists  express 
that  which  I  call  profits  ?  I  answer,  that  as  they  refuse  to 
the  employing  class  a  separate  entity,8  so  they,  logically 
enough,  practically  deny  the  existence  of  profits  distinctly 
from  the  returns  of  capital.  If  the  employer,  who  is 
assumed  to  become  an  employer  because  he  is  a  capitalist, 
and  to  the  extent  to  which  he  is  a  capitalist,  gives  his  per 
sonal  attention  and  his  time  to  the  business,  they  acknowl- 
edge that  he  receives  an  addition  to  his  income  on  that  ac- 
count, which  addition  they  define  as  u  the  wages  of  super- 
vision and  management."  This  they  regard  as  belonging 
strictly  to  the  category  of  wages,  and  treat  the  case  pre- 
cisely as  if  the  employer  or  "capitalist5'  had  dispensed 
with  a  paid  overseer,  superintendent,  or  manager,  and 
drawn  the  salary  of  the  position  himself — otherwise  his 
"profits"  are  all  the  proper  returns  of  capital.  If  he 
chooses  to  withdraw  his  personal  attention  and  retain  the 
overseer,  superintendent,  or  manager,  then  his  "  profits  " 
have  no  such  foreign  admixture. 

But  inasmuch  as  the  theory  of  distribution  offered  in 

i  "  Profits  proper,  or  interest."— Prof.  Rogers,  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  139. 

"  The  return  for  abstinence  is  profit." — Prof.  Cairnes'  "  Some  Lead- 
ing Principles,"  etc.,  p.  48. 

a  As  Mr.  Amasa  Walker  is  the  only  systematic  writer  on  political 
economy,  with  whose  work  I  am  familiar,  who  recognizes  the  employ- 
ers of  labor  as  constituting  a  distinct  industrial  class,  so  he  is  the  only 
one  who  gives  the  word  Profits  the  significance  it  has  in  the  text. 
"  By  the  term  profits  we  mean  that  share  of  wealth,  which,  in  the 
general  distribution,  falls  to  those  who  effect  an  advantageous  union 
between  labor  and  capital  ....  the  parties,  then,  to  production 
are  (1)  the  laborer,  (2)  the  capitalist,  (3)  the  employer,  or  manager. 
Each  ha-s  a  distinct  province  and  a  separate  interest."— Science  of 
Wealth,  pp.  279-80. 


233  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

this  treatise  requires  the  recognition  of  the  employers  of 
labor  as  a  distinct  industrial  class  (see  Chapter  XI Y),  per- 
forming a  function  of  high  importance,  something  beyond 
"supervision  and  management,"  as  exercised  by  hired 
agents,  it  is  evident  that  a  term  is  needed  to  designate  the 
share  of  this  class  in  the  product  of  industry.  Now, 
while  the  use  which  the  text-books  make  of  the  term 
Profits  is,  as  has  been  said,  not  objectionable  on  linguistic 
grounds,  that  which  is  here  proposed  certainly  corresponds 
far  better  to  the  popular  usage,  at  least  in  America.  I 
cannot  speak  with  assurance  in  respect  to  the  significance 
of  the  word  in  England ;  but  with  us,  few  practical  men 
would  understand  a  manufacturer's  or  a  merchant's  profits 
to  include  his  interest-account.  Webster's  Dictionary 
gathers  the  American  sense  of  the  word  correctly  in  the 
following  definition  :  "  The  profit  of  the  farmer  and  the 
manufacturer  is  the  gain  made  by  sale  of  produce  or  man- 
ufactures, after  deducting  the  value  of  the  labor,  materials, 
rent,  and  all  expenses,  together  with,  the  interest  of  the 
capital  employed,  whether  land,  machinery,  buildings, 
instruments,  or  money."  And  since  this  use  of  the  word 
agrees  thus  with  the  speech  of  practical  men,  while  the 
term,  Returns  of  Capital,  is  perfectly  descriptive  of  the 
object  to  which  it  is  applied,  I  trust  the  reader  will  not 
revolt  at  being  asked  to  carry  through  the  further  course 
of  this  enquiry  the  definition  of  Profits,  as  the  remunera- 
tion of  the  employing  class,  or  the  gains  of  business. 

According  to  our  analysis  and  definition,  then,  th* 
parties  to  the  distribution  of  the  product  of  modern  indus- 
try, in  its  highest  organization,  and  the  shares  they  re- 
spectively receive,  are  as  follows  : 

1.  The  Wages  Class Wages. 

2.  The  Capitalist  Class Returns  of  Capital  (Rent :  Interest) 

8.  The  Employing  Class Profits. 


18  INTEREST  AT  ITS  MINIMUM  f  238 

Are  the  returns  of  capital  already  at  or  neai  .he  mini- 
mum ?  A  very  common  answer  to  complaints  respecting 
the  inadequacy  of  wages,  or  to  schemes  for  securing  their 
increase,  is  that  the  returns  of  capital  are  already  as  low 
as  it  is  for  the  interest  of  the  laborers  themselves  they 
should  go ;  that  if  a  smaller  annual  return  were  to  be 
made  to  the  capitalist  for  the  use  of  his  accumulated 
wealth,  the  disposition  to  save  would  be  so  far  affected 
thereby  as  to  reduce  the  store  of  capital,  and  thus  diminish 
employment.  I  am  embarrassed  in  making  quotations 
from  economical  writers  to  show  the  direction  of  this 
argument,  by  the  fact  that  they  generally  use  the  word 
profits  *  to  express  the  returns  of  capital  (including  remu- 
neration for  its  risk),  but  with  always  a  possible  addition 
of  "the  wages  of  supervision  and  management."  It  is, 
therefore,  difficult  to  say  whether,  in  a  specific  instance, 
the  rate  of  interest  is  referred  to  alone,  or  the  remunera 
tion  of  the  man  of  business,  after  estimating  the  proper 
returns  of  capital,  is  also  included.  But  as  the  latter 
element  is  treated  as  of  comparatively  slight  importance, 
I  think  I  may  assume  that,  when  Professor  Cairnes  says 
"  Profits  are  already  at  or  within  a  hand's  breadth  of  the 
minimum,"  3  he  refers  chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  to  the  returns 
upon  capital.  Of  course,  if  profits  be  at  the  minimum, 
any  increase  of  wages  which  involved  a  further  reduction 
in  the  returns  of  capital,3  would  unquestionably  be  detri- 
mental. Prof.  Fawcett  thus  works  out  the  effects  of  such 
a  reduction :  "  If  profits  are  diminished,  there  is  not  so 
great  an  inducement  to  save,  and  the  amount  of  capital 
accumulated  will  decrease ;  the  wages  fund  will  conse- 

1  "  Profit :  a  word  which,  like  many  others  in  political  economy,  is 
very  loosely  applied."— Prof.  Rogers'  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  5. 

2  "  Some  Leading  Principles,"  etc.,  p.  258. 

8  It  has  been  shown  that  it  is  possible  that  an  advance  of  wagea 
may  be  made  in  several  ways  without  involving  a  reduction  either  in 
profits  or  in  the  returns  of  capital. 


234  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

quently  be  diminished,  and  there  will  be  a  smaller  amount 
to  distribute  among  the  laboring  classes."  1 

But  I  fail  wholly  to  understand  what  evidence  Prof. 
Cairnes  can  have  had  that  the  returns  of  capital  are  at  01 
near  the  minimum.  If  he  had  in  view  the  fact  that  in 
England  the  rate  of  interest  and  the  returns  from  capital 
invested  in  land  are  now  so  low  that  a  continually  increas- 
ing amount  of  capital  is  going  abroad  to  newer  countries, 
this  is  undoubtedly  true  ;  but  it  affords  no  proof  that  the 
rate  of  interest  in  England  has  reached  the  point  where  a 
further  reduction  would  touch  the  principle  of  frugality 
in  the  quick.  Every  dollar  of  British  capital  fortunately 
invested  in  Australia  or  the  United  States  helps  to  cheapen 
the  materials  of  British  manufactures,  and  to  wTiden  the 
market  for  British  products.  So  long  as  these  new  coun- 
tries enjoy  such  extraordinary  natural  advantages,  English 
capital  will  doubtless  continue  to  go  abroad  ;  but  were 
these  countries  filled  up  with  capital,  so  as  to  bring  the 
rate  of  interest  down  to  what  it  is  in  England,  where  is 
the  reason  for  believing  that  Englishmen  would  not  save 
their  wealth  for  the  sake  of  an  annual  return  lower  than 
the  present?  The  return  to  an  investor  in  the  British 
consols,  which  are  regarded  as  the  ideal  security,  is  about 
three  and  three-sevenths  per  cent,  per  annum.  The  in- 
surance companies  realize  about  four  and  one-half  per 
cent,  on  their  investments.  Railway  shares  paying  five 
per  cent,  a  year  sell  ordinarily  close  on  100.  Could  Prof. 
Cairnes  have  meant  that,  if  Englishmen  could  not  get  five 
per  cent,  for  their  capital,  or  at  least  three  and  three-sev- 
enths per  annum,  they  would  consume  it  in  self-indul- 
gence ?  But  we  know  that  the  Dutch  have  accumulated 
vast  savings  on  still  lower  inducements,  for  the  rate  of 
interest  in  Holland  long  ruled  at  two  and  one-half  per 
sent.,  while  the  government  borrowed  freely  at  two  per 

1  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  243. 


THE  MOTIVE  TO  SA  V1NQ.  235 

cent.  Nor  have  we  any  grounds  for  assuming  that  even 
a  lower  rate  might  not  find  people  still  saving,  be  it  from 
profits,  from  wages,  or  from  the  returns  of  previously 
existing  capital. 

One  consideration  of  importance,  which  is  often  lost 
sight  of  in  this  connection,  is  that  the  motive  to  save  con- 
tains an  element  besides  the  expectation  of  an  annual 
income  from  the  accumulation.  Saving  is  also  in  the 
nature  of  an  insurance  against  the  casualties  of  life.  The 
strength  of  this  motive  to  self-denial  for  the  sake  of  insur- 
ance alone,  is  seen  in  communities  where  there  are  no 
banks,  as  in  many  of  the  departments  of  France,  and  110 
means  of  ordinary  investment,  where  yet  vast  sums  are 
accumulated  by  the  peasantry.1  Not  the  less  in  countries 
where  banks  afford  the  safe  and  sure  means  of  deriving 
present  revenue  from  savings,  does  this  desire  to  save,  as 
an  insurance  against  the  inevitable  ills  of  life,  constitute  a 
considerable  part  of  the  motive  to  accumulation.  Men 
would  in  a  degree  provide  against  old  age  and  sickness, 
provide  for  the  possible  widowhood  and  orphanage  of 
those  dependent  on  them,  were  there  no  interest  on 
money ;  and  saving  thus,  a  very  low  rate  of  interest  on 
absolutely  safe  investments  would  call  their  funds  into 
productive  use. 

Now  this  view,  the  justice  of  which  cannot,  I  think, 
be  questioned,  affords  the  means  of  judging  somewhat 
more  critically  the  statement  of  Prof.  Fawcett  just  quoted. 
Prof.  Fawcett  says,  If  wages  are  enhanced,  profits  are 
diminished,  and  hence  less  capital  will  be  accumulated. 
But  we  know,  both  from  the  reason  of  the  case  and  from 
the  statistics  of  the  savings  banks,  that  capital  may  be  ac- 
cumulated from  wages  as  well  as  from  profits,  whether  we 
understand  by  that  term,  the  returns  of  capital,  or  the 

1  European  financiers  have  been  more  than  once  astonished  by  the 
enormous  accumulations  of  the  French  peasantry,  when  these  were 
tapped  by  a  popular  loan. 


236  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

gains  of  business.  Does  any  one  say,  a  reduction  in  the 
rate  of  interest  would  affect  the  disposition  of  the  laborers 
to  save  out  of  their  wages  equally  with  the  disposition  of 
the  capitalist  or  the  employers,  to  save  out  of  their  earn- 
ings ?  I  answer,  no,  decidedly  not.  The  motive  to  save, 
for  the  sake  of  insurance,  operates  with  far  greater  force 
among  the  laboring  class  than  among  the  more  fortunate 
classes.  Thus,  taking  the  case  of  a  hundred  laborers  work- 
ing for  one  employer,  can  it  be  doubted  that  the  desires  of 
all  these  individuals,  even  if  we  make  deduction  of  spend- 
thrifts and  drunkards,  to  provide  against  old  age,  sickness, 
and  the  premature  death  of  the  bread-winner,  would  con- 
stitute a  stronger  force  to  direct  towards  savings  an  extra 
thousand  pounds  of  wages,  than  would  the  corresponding 
desire  on  the  part  of  the  single  employer,  in  the  matter  of 
an  extra  thousand  pounds  of  profits  ?  That  this  would  be 
so  in  France  or  Germany,  would  not,  I  think,  be  questioned 
by  any  Frenchman  or  German.  If  it  should  not  prove  so 
in  England,  it  would  be  in  no  small  degree  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  tenure  of  the  land,  the  true  savings  banks  of  the 
people,  has  been  so  much  embarrassed  by  statute  and  by 
judicial  fictions. 

It  should,  of  course,  be  expected  that  a  large  and  sud- 
den increase  of  wages,  due  to  general  industrial  causes  like 
that  which  took  place  four  years  ago  in  the  iron  and  coal 1 
trades  of  Great  Britain,  would,  most  likely,  human  nature 
being  what  it  is,  be  employed  in  ministering,  more  or  less, 
to  folly  arid  vice,  or  squandered  in  expenditures,  not  per- 
haps hurtful  in  themselves,  but  unnecessary,  and  therefore, 
as  against  a  strong  reason  for  saving,  mischievous.  The 
possible  increase  of  wages  which  I  have  in  view  is  rather 
a  steady  advance  due  to  the  increasing  mobility  of  labor 
from  the  growth  of  the  industrial  virtues,  enabling  the 


1  Coal  rose,  between  July  1871,  and  February,  1872  in  the  proportion 
»f  100  to  256,  iron  following,  though  at  a  considerable  interval. 


INTEREST  AT  THE  MINIMUM.  237 

wages  class  to  resort  more  promptly  to  their  market,  and 
to  press  their  employers  more  closely  with  a  truly  effective 
competition.  Wages  thus  won  would,  in  general,  be  well 
employed. 

So  much  for  that  desire  to  make  savings  as  an  insurance 
against  the  contingencies  of  life  and  health,  which  is  one 
element  of  the  principle  of  frugality.  Of  the  other,  and 
doubtless  more  important,  element,  the  desire  to  secure  an 
annual  income  from  investments,  or  from  the  personal  use 
of  capital,  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak  here  at  any  length. 
I  know  no  reason  for  believing  that  interest  in  any  coun- 
try has  reached  its  minimum,  that  is,  the  point  where  the 
desire  to  spend  overpowers  the  disposition  to  save,  in  such 
a  proportion  of  instances  as  to  waste  capital,  or  to  prevent 
it  from  increasing  proportionally  to  population  and  to  the 
opportunities  for  its  reproductive  use  at  current  rates. 


It  is  quite  another  question  whether  it  makes  any  differ- 
ence whether  the  returns  of  capital  are  at  the  minimum,  or 
are  very  much  above  that  point.  I  have  already  J  quoted 
a  paragraph  from  Prof.  Perry  in  which  he  takes  the 
ground  that  if,  from  any  cause,  an  undue  amount  of  the 
product  of  industry  goes  to  the  share  of  the  capitalist-em- 
ployer, nothing  can  defeat  the  tendency  that  the  excess 
shall  be  restored  to  wages.  Prof.  Cairnes,  in  his  "  Lead- 
ing Principles,"  has  expressed  himself  on  the  same  ques- 
tion as  follows  : 

"  Thus,  supposing,"  he  says,  "  a  group  of  employers  to 
have  succeeded,  as  no  doubt  would  be  perfectly  possible 
for  them,  in  temporarily  forcing  down  wages  by  combina- 
tion in  a  particular  trade,  a  portion  of  their  wealth  previ- 
ously invested  would  now  become  free — how  would  it  bo 
employed  ?  Unless  we  are  to  suppose  the  character  of  a 

1  Pp.  81-2. 


238  TEE  WAGES   QUESTION. 

large  section  of  a  community  to  be  suddenly  changed  in  a 
leading  attribute,  the  wealth  so  withdrawn  from  wages 
would,  in  the  end,  and  before  long,  be  restored  to  wages. 
The  same  motives  which  led  to  its  investment  would  lead 
to  its  reinvestment,  and  once  reinvested,  the  interests  of 
those  concerned  would  cause  it  to  be  distributed  amongst 
the  several  elements  of  capital  in  the  same  proportion  as 
before.  In  this  way  covetousness  is  held  in  check  ~by  cov- 
etousness, and  the  desire  for  aggrandizement  sets  limits  to 
its  own  gratification." 

The  doctrine  here  seems  to  be  that  the  desire  for  accu- 
mulation, or  aggrandizement,1  is  a  constant  force,  and  thus 
the  effects  of  covetousness,  through  the  employer's  efforts 
to  give  the  laborer  as  little  as  may  be  for  his  services,  are 
compensated  by  the  effects  of  covetousness  through  the 
employer's  efforts  to  make  a  profit  on  the  amount  thus 
saved  by  again  employing  it  in  the  purchase  of  labor. 
The  motives  to  investment  and  reinvestment  are  therefore 
equal. 

Now  it  seems  to  me  that  this  doctrine  is  inconsistent 
with  any  recognition  of  the  varying  strength  of  the  econo- 
mical motives.  "While  in  particular  instances,  with  per- 
sons of  the  miserly  disposition,  the  passion  for  accumula- 
tion may  grow  with  increasing  wealth,  the  observation  of 
every  one  must  convince  him  that,  with  the  vast  majority 
of  men,  especially  in  this  age  of  refinement  and  of  artificial 
wants,  the  impulse  to  spend  luxuriously  acquires  force, 
after  the  comforts  and  decencies  of  life  are  once  provided 
for,  faster  than  the  impulse  to  save ;  that  large  incomes 
are  not  applied  as  severely  and  judiciously  to  further  get- 
ting as  are  moderate  incomes;  that  the  rich  expend  their 
revenues  with  a  lavishness,  a  capriciousness  and  a  heed- 
lessness  which  are  unknown  to  men  of  smaller  means.  If 
this  be  so,  and,  with  full  regard  to  no  inconsiderable  num- 

1  Pp.  278-9. 


INTEREST  AT  THE  MINIMUM.  239 

ber  of  particular  instances  to  the  contrary,  I  do  not  think 
it  will  be  denied,  then  the  motives  to  reinvestment  cannot 
be  held  to  be  necessarily  equal  to  the  motives  to  invest- 
ment ;  and  instead  of  covetousness  being  held  in  check  by 
eovetousness,  luxuriousness  comes  in  to  consume  a  portion 
at  least  of  such  excessive  gains. 

It  needs  to  be  noted,  moreover,  that,  upon  Prof.  Cairnes' 
own  doctrine  of  "  non-competing  groups,"1  it  would  not 
follow  that  the  sums  thus  taken  from  one  body  of  labor- 
ers in  excessive  profits  will  be  restored  in  wages  to  the 
class  or  classes  suffering  such  losses.  Capital  having,  on 
Prof.  Cairnes'  statement,  a  much  higher  degree  of  mobility 
than  labor,  the  body  of  laborers  to  be  benefited  by  such 
restoration  of  profits  to  wages,  will  not  necessarily,  or  even 
probably,  be  identical  with  that  which  was  in  the  first  in- 
stance depleted.  And  if  a  right  distribution  of  the  pro- 
ducts of  industry  be  important  to  secure  the  highest  indus- 
try and  zeal  in  future  production,  then  incontestibly,  in 
addition  to  all  considerations  of  the  iniquity  of  thus  bleed- 
ing one  class  for  the  benefit  of  others,  we  have  a  strictly 
economic  argument  against  the  theory  of  the  practical  in- 
difference of  the  present  proportions  of  wages  and  profits. 


But  we  may  go  further  and  say  that  all  this  kind  of 
reasoning  in  economics  which  makes  the  employing  or  the 
capitalist  class,  in  a  state  of  imperfect  competition,  the 
guardians  of  the  wages  class,  in  such  a  way  that  it  really 
doesn't  matter  whether  the  laborer  gets  all  the  wages  he 
might,  or  even,  at  any  specified  time,  gets  any  at  all,  because 
excessive  profits  will  further  enrich  those  other  classes  who 
hold  their  wealth  as  a  sort  of  sacred  trust  for  him,  so  that 
at  another  time  he  will  get  all  the  more,  if  he  gets  less  or 
nothing  now — all  this  sort  of  reasoning  is  much  to  be  clis- 

1  See  p.  194. 


240  THE  WAGES   QUESTION. 

trusted.  And  I  cannot  sufficiently  express  my  astonish- 
ment that  an  economist  of  Prof.  Cairnes'  eminent  ability, 
who  made  the  most  important  contribution  ever  offered 
in  modification  of  the  theory  of  competition,  and  who 
pointed  out  the  frightful  hiatus  in  Bastiat's  composition  of 
the  Economical  Harmonies,1  should  have  fallen  into  the 
trap  at  this  point.  Anything  more  contradictory  of  his 
own  doctrine  of  the  extensive  failure  of  competition,  and 
the  want  of  harmony  between  the  interests  of  the  work- 
man and  the  employer,  as  each  understands  his  interests 
and  is  prepared  to  act  with  reference  thereto,  than  this 
assumption  of  the  certain  restoration  to  wages  of  all  sums 
taken  for  excessive  profits,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
conceive. 

It  is  a  poor  rule  that  doesn't  work  both  ways.  Yet 
writers  who  hold  it  to  be  of  no  consequence  at  all  that  the 
"  capitalists  "  should,  by  pressure  brought  upon  the  labor- 
ers, reduce  their  wages  below  the  equitable  point,  sinco 
the  extra  profits  thus  acquired  are  certain  to  be  restored 
to  wages,  seem  to  regard  it  as  a  subject  of  just  apprehen- 
sion lest  laborers  should,  by  trades  unions  or  strikes,  bring 
a  pressure  to  bear,  on  their  side,  which  might  reduce 
profits  unduly.  But  why  should  not  such  extra  wages  be 
restored  to  profits,  just  as  certainly,  peacefully,  and  auto- 
matically ?  What  difference  does  it  make  if  the  "  capital- 
ist," in  any  given  time  or  place,  gets  an  inadequate  profit, 
or  indeed  no  profit  at  all  ?  He  will  only  get  just  so  much 
more  the  next  time.  Certainly,  if  the  laborer  can  wait 
to  have  excessive  profits  restored  to  wages,  the  "  capitalist" 
can  wait  to  have  extra  wages  restored  to  profits. 

This  notion  of  a  see-saw  between  wages  and  profits  is 
well  hit-off  in  a  story  which  Governor  "Winthrop  tells :  "  I 
may  upon  this  occasion  report  a  passage  between  one  of 
Kowley  and  his  servant.  The  master  being  forced  to  sell 

1  See  p.  164. 


THE  LABORER  HIS  OWN  G UARD1AN.  241 

a  pair  of  oxen  to  pay  his  servant  his  wages,  told  his  ser- 
vant he  could  keep  him  no  longer,  not  knowing  how  to 
pay  him  the  next  year.  The  servant  answered  him  that 
he  would  serve  him  for  more  of  his  cattle.  But  how  shall 
I  do  (saith  the  master)  when  all  -my  cattle  are  gone  ?  The 
servant  replied,  you  shall  then  serve  me,  and  so  you  may 
have  your  cattle  again"  *  Surely,  if  a  man  becomes  an 
employer  in  industr}^  only  because  he  is  a  capitalist,  and 
as  he  is  a  capitalist,  the  servant  in  this  story  was  not  more 
of  a  wag  than  of  a  political  economist. 


No,  in  a  state  of  imperfect  competition,  the  employer  is 
not  the  laborer's  guardian,  or  the  trustee  of  his  earnings. 
The  workman's  legitimate  wages  are  a  great  deal  better 
in  his  own  pocket,  or  standing  in  his  own  name  on  the 
books  of  the  savings  bank,  than  paid  into  the  hands  of  the 
employer  as  extra  profits.  The  reasoning  to  the  contrary, 
on  the  assumption  of  a  vital  harmony  of  interests,  cannot 
fail  to  remind  one  of  the  economical  plea,  with  which  it  is 
point  by  point  identical,  once  so  widely  urged,  that  the 
owner's  interest  would  abundantly  protect  the  slave  against 
physical  abuse  or  privation.  It  is  also  closely  analogous 
with  the  political  plea  by  which  the  privileged  classes 
have  always  sought  to  show  that  it  really  didn't  matter 
how  much  political  power  was  entrusted  to  them ;  that  the 
interests  of  rich  and  poor,  high  and  low  were  indissolubly 
bound  up  together,  so  that  if  one  suffered,  all  must  suffer 
with  it ;  and  that,  therefore,  the  class  most  intelligent, 
most  apt  for  government,  having  most  leisure  for  public 
affairs,  with,  moreover,  the  largest  stake  in  society,  might 
safely  be  trusted  to  make  and  execute  all  laws,  their  own 
true  and  permanent  interests  prohibiting  them  from  any 
and  every  course  prejudicial  to  the  lower  classes,  who 

1  History  of  New  England,  II.  219-20. 


243  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

could  not,  it  was  urged,  be  in  any  way  oppressed  but  that 
social  and  industrial  disorders  would  afford  immediate 
retribution  for  the  neglect  of  duty  or  abuse  of  power  on 
the  part  of  their  self-constituted  guardians. 

The  argument  is  a  very  pretty  one,  but  alas !  and  alas ! 
what  a  dreary  and  sickening  tale  is  that  of  the  exactions 
and  oppressions  of  the  Old  Regime  !  There  is  no  class  fit 
to  determine  its  own  rights  and  prescribe  the  duties  of 
others.  Inevitably  will  tyranny  be  engendered,  whenever 
there  is  weakness  or  helplessness  on  the  one  side.  Noblesse 
oblige  ;  and  the  sentiments  of  compassion  and  charity  go 
far  to  mitigate  the  natural  severity  of  legislation  and 
administration  ;  but,  after  all,  there  is  only  one  way  in 
which  the  rights  of  any  body  of  men  can  be  secured,  and 
that  is  by  being  placed  in  their  own  keeping. 


CHAPTEE  XIV. 

THE    EMPLOYING    CLASS!    THE    ENTREPRENEUR    FUNCTION: 
THE   PROFITS    OF   BUSINESS. 


have  seen  (Chapter  I.)  that  much  confusion  has  been 
introduced  into  the  theory  of  wages  by  the  economists 
carrying  the  classification  which  results  from  their  analy- 
sis of  functions  in  production  over  into  the  distribution  of 
wealth,  assuming,  it  would  seem,  that  industrial  functions 
must  needs  characterize  distinct  industrial  classes.  We 
have  seen  that,  in  fact,  the  laborer  and  the  capitalist  are 
largely  the  same  person  ;  and  that  no  division  of  the  pro- 
duct into  shares,  representing  the  claims  of  different  par- 
ties, in  such  cases  takes  place.  We  have  now  to  note  a 
further  source  of  error  in  the  almost  universal  neglect  by 
the  text-book  writers  to  make  account  of  an  industrial 
function  which,  while,  the  world  over  and  history  through, 
it  characterizes  a  class  no  more  1  than  labor  or  capital,  does 
yet,  in  the  most  highly  organized  forms  of  industry,  espe- 
cially in  these  modern  times,  characterize  a  distinct  and  a 
most  important  class.  This  class  comprises  the  modern 
employers  of  labor,  men  of  business,  "  captains  of  indus- 
try." It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  we  have  not  a  single 
"Lnglish  word  which  exactly  fits  the  person  who  performs 
this  office  in  modern  industry.  The  word  "  undertaker," 

1  Thus  the  peasant  proprietor  takes  all  the  responsibilities  of  pro- 
duction, determines  its  courses  and  its  methods,  and  acts,  so  to  speak, 
as  the  entrepreneur  in  respect  to  his  own  little  affairs,  at  the  same 
time  owning  the  capital  employed  and  performing  all  the  labor. 


244  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

the  man  who  undertakes,  at  one  time  had  very  much  this 
extent ;  but  it  has  long  since  been  so  exclusively  devoted 
to  funereal  uses  as  to  become  an  impossible  term  in  politi- 
cal economy.  The  word  "  adventurer,"  the  man  who 
makes  ventures,  also  had  this  sense ;  but  in  modern  par- 
lance it  has  acquired  a  wholly  sinister  meaning.  The 
French  word  "  entrepreneur"  has  very  nearly  the  desired 
significance  ;  and  it  may  be  that  the  exigencies  of  politico- 
economical  reasoning  will  yet  lead  to  its  being  naturalized 
among  us. 

This  function,  then,  of  the  man  of  business,  middleman, 
undertaker,  adventurer,  entrepreneur,  employer,  requires 
to  be  carefully  discriminated. 

The  economists,  almost  without  exception,  have  regarded 
capital  and  labor  as  together  sufficient  unto  production, 
the  capitalist  being  the  employer,  the  laborer  being  the 
employed.  It  may  fairly  be  presumed  that  the  failure  to 
recognize  a  third  party  to  production,  the  middleman,  has 
been  due  in  part  to  the  fact  that  these  writers  have  been 
accustomed  to  take  their  illustrations  of  the  offices  of  labor 
arid  capital  from  the  savage  state,  or  at  least  from  a  very 
primitive  condition  of  industry.  The  bow,  the  spear,  the 
canoe,  are  the  favorite  subjects  when  it  is  to  be  shown, 
how  it  is  that  the  results  of  labor  may  pass  into  the  form 
of  capital ;  how  it  is  that  capital  may  assist  current  labor; 
and  how  it  is  that  a  reward  can  be  given  to  capital  out  of 
the  product  of  industry  without  any  wrong  being  done  to 
the  laborer.  And  it  is  true  that  when  the  forms  of  pro- 
duction are  few  and  simple,  and  when  the  producer  and 
the  consumer  are  either  the  same  person,  or  are  found  in 
close  proximity,  the  possession  of  capital  is  the  one  suffi- 
cient qualification  for  the  employment  of  labor ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  a  supply  of  food  and  of  tools  and  materials  is 
all  that  labor  needs  to  institute  production. 

But  when,  in  the  development  of  industry,  the  forms  of 
production  become  almost  infinitely  numerous  and  compli- 


THE  EMPLOYING  CLASS.  245 

cated  ;  when  many  persons  of  all  degrees  of  skill  and 
strength  must  be  joined  in  labor,  each  in  his  place  contri- 
buting to  a  result  which  he  very  imperfectly,  if  at  all,  com- 
prehends ;  when  the  materials  to  be  used  are  brought  from 
distant  fields,  and  the  products  are  in  turn  to  be  scattered 
by  the  agencies  of  commerce  over  vast  regions,  the  con- 
sumers constituting  an  ill-defined  or  an  undefined  body, 
personally  unknown  to  the  producer  or  any  immediate 
agent  of  his  ;  then  a  reason  for  an  employer  exists  which  is 
wholly  in  addition  to  that  which  exists  in  a  primitive  con- 
dition of  industry.  The  mere  possession  of  capital  no 
longer  constitutes  the  one  qualification  for  employing  labor ; 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  laborer  no  longer  looks  to  the 
employer  to  furnish  merely  food  and  the  materials  and 
tools  of  the  trade;  but  to  furnish  also  technical  skill,  com- 
mercial, knowledge,  and  powers  of  administration  ;  to  as- 
sume responsibilities  and  provide  against  contingencies ;  to 
shape  and  direct  production,  and  to  organize  and  control 
the  industrial  machinery.  And,  moreover,  so  much  more 
important  and  difficult  are  the  last  specified  duties  of  the 
employer ;  so  much  rarer  are  the  abilities  they  require, 
that  he  who  can  perform  these  will  find  it  easy  to  perform 
those ;  if  he  be  the  man  to  conduct  business,  capital  to 
purchase  food,  tools,  and  materials  will  not,  under  our 
modern  system  of  credit,  long  be  wanting  to  him.  On  the 
other  hand,  without  these  higher  qualifications,  the  capi- 
talist will  employ  labor  at  the  risk,  or  almost  the  certainty, 
of  total  or  partial  loss.  The  employer  thus  rises  to  be 
master  of  the  situation.  It  is  no  longer  true  that  a  man 
becomes  an  employer  because  he  is  a  capitalist.  Men 
command  capital  because  they  have  the  qualifications  to 
profitably  employ  labor.  To  these,  captains  of  industry, 
despots  of  industry,  if  one  pleases  to  call  them  so,  capital 
and  labor  alike  resort  for  the  opportunity  to  perform  then 
several  functions.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  employer  is  not 
in  any  case,  or  to  any  extent,  a  capitalist ;  but  that  he  is 


246  THE  WAGES   QUESTION. 

not  an  employer  simply  because  he  is  a  capitalist,  or  t4 
the  extent  only  to  which  he  is  a  capitalist. 

Now  all  this  is  evident  to  any  man  who  looks  careftill} 
on  our  modern  industry.  Yet  the  economists,  having 
made  their  analysis  of  production  in  a  primitive  state 
wholly  neglect  these  later  developed  duties  of  the  em 
ployer,  this  new  and  far  higher  function;  and  insist  on 
regarding  the  capitalist  as  himself  the  employer.  Thej 
resolve  the  entire  industrial  community  into  capitalista 
and  laborers ; 1  and  divide  the  whole  product  between  the 
two.  To  the  contrary,  I  hold  that  no  theory  of  the  dis- 
tribution of  wealth,  in  modern  industry,  can  be  complete 
which  fails  to  make  account  of  the  employing  class,  as  dis- 
tinguished in  idea,  and  largely  also  in  its  personnel,  from 
the  capitalist  class. 

It  would,  I  admit,  be  difficult  to  prove  the  importance 
of  the  entrepreneur  function  in  industry,  just  as  it  would 
be  difficult  by  argument  to  establish  in  the  mind  of  an 
objector,  a  true  conception  of  the  functions  of  the  general 
in  war.  Those  who  know  nothing  about  warfare  might 
believe  that  campaigns  could  be  conducted  on  the  principle 
of  popular  rights  and  universal  suffrage.  "Why  not? 
There  is  the  materiel  of  war  (capital)  in  abundance  ;  here 
are  the  soldiers  (laborers),  who,  if  any  fighting  is  to  be 
done,  will  have  to  do  the  whole  of  it ;  why  should  not 
these  soldiers  take  those  guns,  and  do  their  work  ?  In 
much  the  same  way,  those  who  know  little  practically 
about  production  are  easily  persuaded  that  the  trouble- 
some and  expensive  a captain  of  industry"  may  be  dis- 
pensed with,  and  his  place  occupied  by  a  committee  or  a 
mass  meeting. 

1  "The  ultimate  partners  in  any  production  maybe  divided  into 
two  classes,  capitalists  and  laborers.  ...  If  the  distributor  be  tha 
capitalist,  the  share  of  the  laborer  is  called  wages.  If  the  distributor 
be  the  laborer,  the  share  of  the  capitalist  is  called  either  interest  or 
rent."— Hearn's  Plutology,  pp.  325-7. 


THE  EMPLOYING  CLASS.  247 

We  have  had  but  few  instances  of  actua]  attempts  to 
conduct  campaigns  on  the  town-meeting  plan,  the  most 
notable,  perhaps,  being  the  crusade  of  "Walter  the  Penni- 
less and  the  first  Bull  Run ;  but  there  have  been  numerous 
efforts  made  to  get  rid  of  the  entrepreneur,  and  it  is  in  the 
almost  universal  failure  of  such  efforts  that  we  have  the 
highest  evidence  of  the  importance  of  this  functionary  in 
modern  industry.  Cooperation,1  which  is  nothing  more 
or  less  than  the  doing  away  with  the  middleman,  has 
several  distinct  advantages,  of  vast  scope,  in  production  ; 
yet  these  have  been  weighed  down  again  and  again,  even 
under  conditions  most  favorable  to  the  experiment,  by  the 
losses  resulting  from  the  suspension  of  the  employing 
function.  Let  those  who  resolve  the  industrial  community 
into  capitalists  and  laborers  only,  and  divide  the  whole 
product  between  these  two  classes,  explain,  if  they  can, 
the  failures  of  cooperation. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  omission  of  the  economists  to 
recognize  the  employers  as  a  distinct  class  in  modern  in- 
dustry, is  presumably  due,  in  part,  to  the  tendency  to  go 
back  to  the  savage,  or  to  a  very  primitive  state,  for  illus- 
trations of  the  nature  and  offices  of  labor  and  capital. 
But  I  believe  that  it  is  also  in  part  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  real  employing  class  is  covered  up,  more  or  less,  from 
casual  view,  by  what  may  be  called  a  false  employing 
class,  many  times  more  numerous.  This  false  employing 
class,  as  I  make  bold  to  call  it,  is  composed  of  several  con- 
siderable bodies  of  so-called  employers. 

1.  Those  who  hire  servants  or  retain  assistants  who  are 
to  be  paid  out  of  revenues  already  acquired.  Reasons 
have  already  3  been  assigned  for  removing  persons  so  en- 
gaged or  employed  from  the  wages  class,  and  treating 
them  by  themselves  as  the  "salary  or  stipend  class. *'  Of 

1  A  wholly  erroneous  conception  of  cooperation,  due  to  the  neglect 
of  the  entrepreneur-function,  is  exposed  on  page  264. 
8  P.  215. 


243'  THE  WAGES   QUESTION. 

course,  the  same  reasons  require  the  removal  of  their 
masters  or  patrons  from  the  lists  of  the  employing  class. 
If  we  were  to  consider  the  domestic  servants,  alone,  of 
England  and  the  United  States,  we  should  find  the  so- 
called  employers  to  be  far  more  numerous  than  those  who 
pay  wages  to  laborers  whom  they  hire  for  profit.  No 
wonder  that  when  those  who  are  paid  out  of  revenue  are 
confounded  with  those  who  are  paid  out  of  the  product  of 
their  labor,  the  inclusion  of  the  masters  of  the  former 
class  should  obstruct  the  view  of  the  far  less  numerous 
employers  of  the  latter  class. 

2.  In  this  false  employing  class  are  large  numbers  of 
artisans  who  have  single  apprentices.  Such  an  artisan 
might,  for  instance,  earn  $500  a  year  by  his  own  unassisted 
labor,  while  his  gains  by  the  apprentice's  services  might 
be  $50.  So  far,  doubtless,  he  is  an  employer  of  labor,  and 
his  gains  are  entitled,  on  a  nice  judgment  of  the  case,  to 
be  called  "  profits  ;  "  but  these  bear  so  small  a  proportion 
to  his  other  source  of  income,  and  he  is,  in  his  capacity  of 
employer,  of  so  little  account,  that  we  cannot  afford  to  be 
encumbered  by  carrying  him  on  as  the  employer  of  a  third 
or  a  fifth  part  of  an  able  laborer.  A  single  cotton  manu- 
facturer or  iron  master  may  employ  a  thousand  times,  or 
five  thousand  times,  as  much  effective  labor.  It  is  of  more 
importance  that  we  should  see  the  cotton  rr.anufacturer 
and  the  iron  master  in  their  true  relations  to  the  great  body 
of  labor  seeking  employment,  than  that  we  should  trouble 
ourselves  about  the  economical  status  of  the  fraction  of  a 
laborer  who  is  perhaps,  at  present,  spoiling  more  material 
than  his  work  is  worth.  The  principle  of  the  law,  de  mini- 
mis  non  curatur,  applies  with  even  greater  force  in  politi- 
cal economy.  What  we  need  in  studying  the  problem  of 
distribution  is  not  a  nice  theoretical  classification,  but  a 
jnst  and  strong  exhibition  of  the  great  groups  of  our  mod 
ern  industrial  society.1 

1  For  remarks  of  Prof.  Cairnes  regarding  the  office  of  economic  de- 
finition, see  page  218. 


THE  FALSE  EMPLOYING  CLASS.  248 

3.  Another  large  body  which  we  need  to  exclude,  tem- 
porarily, at  least,  from  the  employing  class,  in  order  that 
we  may  get  a  proper  view  of  its  real  constitution,  is  that 
where  the  condition  is  one  of  nominal  employment  but  of 
substantial  partnership.     This  includes  a  great  number  of 
cases  where  two  men,  or  perhaps  three,  of  a  trade,  approxi- 
mately equal  in  skill  and  experience,  the  work  of  the  one 
being  merely  a  repetition  of  the  work  of  the  other,  labor 
together  at  the  bench,  one  being  recognized  as  the  master, 
the  other  receiving  wages ;  yet  where  the  reason  for  one 
being  the  employer  and  the  other  the  employed  is  so 
slight,  the  equality  of  skill  and  experience  so  well  main- 
tained, the  character  and  the  profits  of  the  business  so 
well  understood  by  him"  who  receives   wages,   and   the 
ability  of  that  person  to  set  up  for  himself  so  evident,  that 
the  employer  virtually  becomes  little  more  than  the  senior 
member  of  a  partnership  where  the  nominal  wages  and 
terms  of  service  are  scaled  to  give  a  substantial  equality  of 
remuneration,  with  some  slight  compensation  to  the  senior 
member  for  extra  trouble  and  responsibility. 

4.  There  remains  to  be  characterized  a  fourth  class  of 
persons  to  whom  I  do  not  wish  to  deny  the  title  of  em- 
ployer, but  whom  it  is  desirable  for  the  moment  to  isolate, 
those,  namely,  who,  having  mistakenly  become  by  occupa- 
tion the  employers  of  labor,  through  helplessness  or  false 
pride  cling  to  the  skirts  of  the  profession,  and  remain  in 
a  small  and  miserable  way  conductors  of  industry,  follow- 
ing humbly  and  at  a  distance  the   example  of   leading 
houses ;  content,  in  flush  times,  to  make  a  little  profit  on  a 
little  product,  using  generally  antiquated  machinerjT,  con- 
suming materials  of  doubtful  quality,  and  making  a  low 
class  of  goods,  but  shutting  up  promptly  on  the  first  inti- 
mation of  hard  times,  or  just  so  soon  as  competition  be- 
comes close  and  persistent.     Numerically  the  men  of  this 
class  constitute  a  considerable  proportion  of  every  trade ; 
but  if  we  consider  the  aggregate  product,  their  part  is  com- 
paratively slight. 


250  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

I  do  not  mean  to  embrace  in  this  class  any  manufacturer 
merely  because  bis  establishment  is  a  small  one.  It  would 
be  easy  to  show  that  in  some  departments  of  production, 
perhaps  in  most,  petty  establishments  fill  a  place,  take  up 
a  certain  amount  of  labor  not  otherwise  employed  (as,  for 
instance,  the  labor  of  the  wives  and  daughters  of  agricul- 
turists in  the  immediate  neighborhood),  find  a  distinct 
market  to  which,  in  a  homely  but  useful  way,  they  adapt 
themselves  perhaps  better  than  the  monster  factory  can  do. 
The  commerce  of  the  world  requires  not  only  the  ship  of 
5,000  tons,  but  the  schooner,  the  lighter,  and  the  dory. 

Yet  of  no  small  part  of  these  petty  establishments  which 
make  short  runs  from  point  to  point  between  storm  and 
squall,  it  may  be  boldly  asserted  that  they  answer  no  true 
industrial  purpose.  Their  only  raison  d'etre  is  found  in 
the  fact  that  their  proprietors,  having  committed  them- 
selves to  the  profession  of  the  entrepreneur,  having  come 
into  the  possession  of  a  certain  amount  of  the  machinery 
and  agencies  of  production,  and  being  unable  to  betake 
themselves,  at  the  point  of  life  they  have  reached,  to  an- 
other occupation,  or  being  unwilling  to  so  openly  confess 
failure,  can  pick  up  a  very  poor  living  in  this  way.  And 
of  employers  of  this  sort,  it  is  significant  to  note,  laborers 
are  not  apt  to  be  jealous.  They  are  known  to  have  a 
pretty  hard  time  of  it.  Their  lot  is  not  envied,  and  they 
commonly  receive  the  sympathy  of  the  general  community 
and  of  their  hands  ;  while  the  successful  captain  of  indus- 
try, who  amasses  a  giant  fortune,  is  regarded  by  not  a  few 
as  having  despoiled  the  laboring  class.  Yet  it  is  incon- 
testable that  the  profits  01  the  former  constitute  by  far  the 
heavier  tax,  dollar  for  dollar,  upon  the  product  of  labor. 
Nothing  costs  the  working  classes  so  dearly,  in  the  long 
run,  as  the  bad  or  merely  commonplace  conduct  of 
business. 


THE  MEAL  EMPLOYING  CLASS.  251 

Putting  aside  for  the  moment  the  several  classes  enu- 
merated, we  have  plainly  in  view  the  real  employing  clasa 
of  our  modern  industrial  society :  a  comparatively  small 
body  of  men,  who  control  the  destinies  of  labor  no  more 
than  they  do  the  destinies  of  capital.  These  men  consti- 
tute a  class  strictly  limited  in  numbers,  and  dealing  most 
despotically,  as  indeed  they  must,  with  the  outside  world. 
The  conditions  of  admission  are  a  long  self -initiation,  a 
high  premium  of  immediate  loss,  and  a  great  degree  of 
uncertainty  as  to  ultimate  success.  Into  this  guild,  in 
these  modern  days,  no  aspirant  for  profits  needs  to  be 
inducted  with  ceremonies,  or  first  invited  by  the  existing 
membership.  All  are  in  theory  free  to  enter ;  but  the 
number  who  venture  is  closely  restricted  by  the  known 
conditions  of  business.  Those  only  undertake  it  who  are 
able,  or,  like  the  rowers  of  Mnestheus,  think  they  are  able, 
to  sustain  the  ordeal  of  fierce  and  unrelenting  competition  ; 
while  those  who  have  the  courage  to  venture  are  contin- 
ually sifted  by  commercial  and  industrial  pressures  and 
panics,  so  that  only  the  fittest  survive. 

I  have  no  wish  to  idealize  the  successful  employer  of 
labor.  He  may  easily  be  found  to  be  a  very  unamiable 
and  a  very  uninteresting  person.  For  the  perfect  temper 
of  business  something  doubtless  of  hardness  is  needed,  just 
as  it  is  the  alloy  of  baser  metal  which  fits  the  gold  for  cir- 
culating in  the  hands  of  men.  A  little  too  much  sensi- 
bility or.  a  little  too  much  imagination,  is  often  a  sufficient 
cause  of  failure  in  the  stern  competitions  of  business.  The 
successful  entrepreneur  need  not  even  understand  the 
theory  of  trade,  or  be  a  financier  in  the  larger  sense  of  that 
word.  A  kind  of  subtle  instinct  often  directs  the  move- 
ments of  the  ablest  merchants,  bankers,  and  manufacturers. 
They  know  that  the  market  is  about  to  experience  a  con- 
vulsion, because  they  know  it ;  just  as  the  cattle  know 
that  a  storm  is  brewing.  They  not  only  could  not  give 
reasons  intelligible  to  others  for  the  course  they  take ;  they 


B52  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

do  not  even  analyze  their  intellectual  processes  for  theii 
own  satisfaction. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  draw  the  outlines  of  the  represen- 
tative entrepreneur.  Living  illustrations  will  rise  before 
the  mind  of  every  reader,  far  more  vivid  than  any  art  of 
mine  could  execute.  M.  Courcelle-Seneuil,  in  his  Opera- 
tions de  Banque^  has  grouped  the  qualities  the  employer 
should  possess :  "  du  jugement,  du  bon  sens,  de  la  fermete, 
de  la  decision,  une  appreciation  froide  et  calme,  une  intel- 
ligence ouverte  et  vigilante,  peu  d'imagination,  beaucoup 
de  memoire  et  d' application."  1 

I  said  that  the  real  employing  class  is  comparatively 
small.  I  do  not  speak  alone  of  those  employing  workmen 
by  the  thousand  or  the  ten  thousand,  or  even  of  those 
alone  whose  pay-rolls  count  up  hundreds  of  hands.3  If 
we  go  down  to  the  captains  of  fifties  and  the  captains  of 
tens,  it  still  remains  true  that  the  bulk  of  the  wage-labor 
of  England,  France,  Germany,  and  the  United  States,  is 
controlled  by  a  small,  choice  band  of  men,  who  are  masters 
in  industry  because,  whatever  be  their  social  quality,  in 
industry  they  are  masterly.  To  call  these  men  the  creat- 
ures of  their  workmen,  and  speak  of  the  sums  they  exact 
in  royalty  on  all  the  business  which  passes  through  their 
hands,  as  "the  wages  of  supervision  and  management," 
seems  to  me  as  idle  a  fiction  as  it  would  have  been  to  cal' 
the  seigniors  under  the  Old  Regime  the  social  representa- 
tives  of  the  tiers  etat,  and  to  speak  of  the  sums  they 
lavished  in  pomp  and  pleasure,  as  their  "allowances." 

Are  profits  already  at  the  minimum,  so  that  we  may 

1  P.  392. 

2  Thus,  even  in  Austria,  one  of  the  most  backward  of  European 
countries  in  the  organization  of  industry,  we  find  that  493  employers 
provide  lodging  for  not  less  than  59,343  workmen.    In  France,  Messrs. 
Schneider  &  Co.  ("  Le  Creusot")  employ   10,000  workmen.     Anzin 
employs  15,000  under  a  single  direction.    At  the  great  cannon  foundry 
of  Krupp,  at  Essen  in  Westphalia,  between  8,000  and  10,000  are 
employed.    In  Great  Britain,  like  gigantic  establishments  aboard. 


ARE  PROFITS  AT  THE  MINIMUM?  25| 

not  look  to  see  an  increase  of  wages  obtained  from  this 
source?  Much  of  what  has  been  said  relative  to  the 
asserted  restoration  to  wages,  of  all  sums  which  may  go  in 
excessive  returns  to  capital,  applies  equally  in  the  case  of 
excessive  profits,  the  remuneration  of  the  man  of  business, 
the  employer,  the  entrepreneur.  It  cannot  safely  be 
assumed  that,  to  use  Prof.  Cairnes'  phrase,1  covetousness 
be  held  in  check  by  covetousness,  inasmuch  as  luxurious- 
ness  will  inevitably  enter  to  absorb  a  portion  of  such 
undue  gains.  But  here  still  another  reason  appears, 
namely,  that,  as  the  part  of  the  employer  in  production  13 
active ;  not  abstinence,  as  in  the  case  of  the  capitalist,  but 
exertion  ;  in  addition,  then,  to  the  effects  of  luxuriousness, 
excessive  profits  will,  with  no  small  proportion  of  employ- 
ers, allow  the  native  propensity  to  indolence  and  ease  of 
life  to  enter  to  take  something  from  the.  zeal  and  enter- 
prise with  which  business  is  conducted.  It  is  only  the 
exceptionally  ambitious  and  resolute  who  will  wholly 
withstand  this  propensity.  So  that  when  Prof.  Perry 
says,  "  If,  in  the  division  between  profits  and  wages,  at 
the  end  of  any  industrial  cycle,  profits  get  more  than  their 
due  share,  these  very  profits  will  wish  to  become  capital, 
and  will  thus  become  an  extra  demand  for  labor,  and  the 
•next  wages  fund  will  be  larger  than  the  last,"2  I  am 
obliged  to  take  the  exception  that  a  portion  of  these 
profits,  so  far  as  Prof.  Perry  includes  in  that  term  the 
gains  of  the  man  of  business,  will  wish  to  become  fine 
horses  and  houses,  fine  clothes  and  opera  boxes ;  while 
another  portion  will  wish  to  take  the  form  of  coming  to 
the  office  an  hour  later  in  the  morning  and  going  home 
an  hour  earlier  in  the  afternoon. 

Hence,  if  we  cannot  safely  assume  that  it  is  a  matter  oi 
indifference  to  the  wages  class  whether  a  little  more  or  less 
goes  in  profits  to  the  employer,  it  becomes  of  important 

'  P  238. 

*  The  Financier,  August  1,  1874. 


254  THE  WAGES   QUESTION. 

to  inquire  whether  there  is  any  reason  to  believe  that  pro 
fits  are  already  at  the  minimum.  And  as  to  this,  one  can 
have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  the  probabilities  are 
strongly  against  such  a  supposition.  The  present  average 
rate  of  profits,  or  annual  aggregate  of  profits,  has  noto- 
riously been  reached  as  the  result  of  unequal  competition, 
;n  which  employers  have  been  active,  alert,  and  mobile, 
while  laborers  have  been,  in  a  great  degree,  ignorant  and 
inert,  resorting  to  the  right  market  tardily,  or  mistakenly 
to  the  wrong  market.  It  does  not  follow  that  because  the 
laborers  have  lost  heavily  by  this  failure  of  competition, 
the  employers  have  gained  it  all.  Much  has  been  lost 
to  the  laborers  and  to  the  world.  Nowhere  does  the 
monopolist  gain  all  that  others  lose  by  him.  Yet  the  em- 
ploying class  have  profited,  and  still  profit,  greatly  by  this 
partial  immobility  of  labor.  The  lowest  price  which  any 
laborer  will  receive  for  his  services  is  no  longer  the  highest 
price  which  any  employer  can  afford  to  give. 

In  the  first  part  of  this  work,  when  treating  of  produc- 
tion, I  had  occasion  to  show  that  the  wages  of  the  laborer 
might  be  increased  in  several  ways  without  diminishing 
profits,  the  explanation  being  that  the  laborer's  efficiency 
will  be  increased  proportionally  or  more  than  proportion- 
ally. In  dealing  with  the  problem  of  Distribution,  the 
laborer's  efficiency  will  be  assumed  constant,  and  I  shall 
inquire  what  causes  may  operate  to  increase  the  laborer's  • 
share  of  the  product,  not  the  absolute  amount  of  his  wages. 

And,  first,  let  it  be  noted  that  a  gain  might  be  effected 
through  a  reduction  in  what  may  be  called  the  cost  of  em- 
ployment, without  involving  any  reduction  in  the  aggre- 
gate profits  of  employers  as  a  body.  Let  me  illustrate :  I 
was  much  struck  at  the  complaints  made  at  some  of  the 
meetings  of  agricultural  laborers  in  England  during  the 
lockout  of  1874:,  that  many  of  the  employers  were  hard- 
drinking  men  and  poor  farmers,  and  that  if  they  attended 
more  closely  to  their  business  and  managed  it  better,  they 


INCOMPETENT  EMPLO  YERS.  255 

could  afford  to  pay  higher  wages.  Now  no  one  should 
lightly  credit  the  complaints  of  angry  men  ;  nor  was  there 
any  reason  to  suppose  that  the  farmers  of  the  lockout  sec- 
tion comprised  more  than  the  usual  proportion  of  dissolute 
and  negligent  employers.  What  occurs  to  me  as  notice- 
able in  this  matter  is  the  correctness  with  which  these 
laborers  apprehended  the  principle  that  when  men  who 
are  unfit  to  conduct  business  force  themselves  into  the 
employment  of  labor,  it  is  at  the  expense  of  labor.  The 
theory  of  competition  assumes  the  intelligence  and  capacity 
of  the  employer  to  see  and  follow  his  own  interests.1 
His  doing  this  is  (assuming  the  mobility  of  labor)  to  be 
the  very  means  by  which  the  laborer's  interest  is  secured. 
If  the  employer  fails  in  this  requirement  of  intelligence 
and  capacity,  it  may  be  not  the  better  but  the  worse  for 
the  laborer.  Bad  business  management  is  the  heaviest 
possible  tax  on  production,  and  while  the  incapable  em- 
ployer gets  little  for  himself,  the  laborer  loses  heavily  in 
the  rate  or  the  regularity  of  his  wages. 

Now,  several  causes  may  help  to  swell  the  proportion 
of  incapable  employers.  Shilly-shally  laws  relating  to 
insolvency  do  this ;  fictitious  currency  does  this ;  truck 
does  this.2  Each  of  these  causes  enables  men  to  escape 

1  Errors  in  directing  production  are  never  offset  one  against  another, 
as  mistakes  in  computation  so  often  are  with  a  result  of  substantial 
accuracy.  Whether  the  employer  err  in  being  too  timid  or  too  ven- 
turesome, loss  is  alike  sustained,  an  injury  is  suffered  which  is  with- 
out compensation.  There  is  no  balancing  of  one  mistake  against 
another  in  industry. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  employer  is  almost  always  either  too 
timid  or  too  venturesome.  The  perfect  temper  of  business,  we  might 
suppose,  is  found  in  no  living  man.  But  the  sterner  the  responsibility 
to  which  the  employer  is  held,  the  more  steady  and  severe  the  compe- 
tition to  which  he  is  subjected,  the  nearer  will  be  the  approach  to  this 
ideal,  the  less  will  be  the  waste  in  production  due  to  mis-direction  of 
the  industrial  force. 

8  The  evidence  before  the  Committee  of  1854  brought  out  strongly 
this  feature  of  the  truck  system ;  that  it  was  chiefly  resorted  to  by 


256  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

the  consequences  of  incompetency,  and  to  hang  miserably 
on  to  business,  where  they  are  an  obstruction  and  a 
nuisance.  Any  thing  which  should  decisively  cut  them 
off,  and  remit  them  to  subordinate  positions,  would  be  a 
great  gain  to  the  laboring  classes,  and  very  likely,  in  the 
result,  prove  a  real  relief  to  themselves.  Slavery,  in  like 
manner,  enables  men  to  control  labor  and  direct  produc- 
tion who  never  would  become,  on  an  equal  scale,  the 
employers  of  free  labor  ;  and  it  is  not  more  to  the  ineffi- 
ciency of  the  slave  than  to  the  incompetency  of  the 
master,  that  the  unproductiveness  of  chattel  labor  is  due. 

The  lower  the  industrial  quality  of  free  labor,  the  more 
ignorant  and  inert  the  individual  laborer,  the  lower  may 
be  the  industrial  quality  of  the  men  who  can  just  sustain 
themselves  in  the  position  of  employer.  Men  become  the 
employers  of  cheap  labor  who  would  never  be  the  employ- 
ers of  dear  labor,  and  who  ought  not  to  be  the  employers 
of  any  sort  of  labor.  The  more  active  becomes  the  com- 
petition among  the  wages  class,  the  more  prompt  their 
resort  to  market,  the  more  persistent  their  demand  for 
every  possible  increase  of  remuneration,  the  greater  will 
be  the  pressure  brought  to  bear  upon  such  employers  to 
drop  out  of  the  place  into  which  they  have  crowded  them- 
selves at  the  cost  of  the  general  community,  and  where 
they  have  been  able  to  maintain  themselves  only  because 
the  working  classes  have  failed,  through  ignorance  and 
inertness,  to  exact  their  full  terms. 

But,  secondly,  a  rise  of  wages  due  to  a  quickened  com- 
petition on  the  part  of  the  wages  class,  might  be  to  a  very 
great  extent  compensated  by  increased  zeal,  energy,  and 

small  and  doubtful  establishments  which  thus  contrived  to  make  up, 
by  "sweating"  the  wages  of  their  operatives,  what  they  could  not 
make  in  legitimate  profits,  and  thus  kept  themselves  alive.  Indeed, 
the  excuse  most  frequently  urged  by  truck  masters  was  that,  but  for 
gains  thus  realized,  they  would  be  obliged  to  give  up  business.  It  ia 
needless  to  say  that  the  sooner  such,  employers  are  driven  out,  the 
better  for  the  laboring  class. 


EMPLOYERS  ON  THEIR  METTLE.  257 

economy  on  the  part  of  the  really  able  men  of  business. 
It  does  no  man  good  to  have  much  odds  given  him ;  and 
the  inertness  of  labor  has  always  a  mischievous  effect  even 
upon  the  best  of  the  employing  class.  So  far  as  the 
increasing  demands  of  the  laborer  are  due  to  his  greater 
vigilance,  activity,  and  social  ambition,  we  may  be  pretty 
sure  that  these  demands  will  be  responded  to  fully  by  the 
entrepreneur.  Whether  we  consider  business  on  its  side 
of  enterprise,  or  on  its  side  of  economy,  we  shall  find  that 
it  does  the  manager  no  harm  to  be  sharply  followed  up. 
Where  large  margins  are  afforded,  there  is  likely  to  be 
much  waste ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  no  man  does  his 
best  except  when  his  best  is  required.  "  It  was  an  axiom 
of  the  late  Mr.  John  Kennedy,  who  was  called  the  father 
of  the  cotton  manufacture,  that  no  manufacturing  im- 
provements were  ever  made  except  on  threadbare  profits." 
Mr.  Babbage,  in  his  Economy  of  Manufactures,1  has 
shown  that  inventions  and  improvements  in  the  mechan- 
ical arts  have  sometimes  been  healthfully  stimulated  by 
the  goadings  of  industrial  distress ;  and  Mr.  Chadwick  has 
given  an  interesting  exposition  2  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  increasing  pressure  of  competition  has  served  to  pro- 
mote the  commercial  ventures  which  have  successively 
widened  the  market  for  British  manufactures.  But  surely 
we  need  no  "  modern  instances "  to  establish  a  principle 
so  old  and  familiar.  The  weighty  words  of  Gibbon :  "  the 
spirit  of  monopolists  is  barren,  lazy,  and  oppressive," 
apply  to  all  production  in  just  the  degree  in  which  com- 
petition is  defeated  or  deferred,  whether  by  the  force  of 
law,  or  by  the  ignorance  and  inertness  of  the  laboring 
classes. 

Perhaps  as  good  an  illustration  as  could  be  given  of  the 
effects  of  increased  competition  in  winnowing  the  employ- 
ing class  of  its  least  efficient  members,  and  stimulating 

•  P.  294.  «  Statistical  Journal,  xxviii.  3-5. 


J858  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

the  enterprise  and  the  economy  of  those  who  survive  the 
process,  is  afforded  by  the  course  of  English  agriculture 
since  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws,  a  measure  which  the 
landed  interest  believed  at  the  time  would  be  absolutely 
fatal,  and  which,  indeed,  would  have  ruined  that  interest 
but  for  the  saving  virtue  of  the  forces  here  invoked.  Yet 
English  agriculture  never  stood  on  a  better  foundation 
than  to-day  :  the  gains  of  the  farmer  probably  were  never 
larger  through  an  equal  term  of  years.  The  reason  is 
that  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws,  and  the  opening  of 
English  markets  to  the  bread-stuffs  of  the  world,  put  the 
agricultural  interest  on  its  mettle  ;  the  farmers  found  that 
they  must  abandon  the  old  clumsy  and  wasteful  ways ; 
break  up  the  old  clumsy  and  wasteful  machinery ;  pay 
higher  wages  for  better  work ;  breed  only  from  the  choicest 
stock ;  make  improvements  in  every  process  of  cultivation, 
from  selecting  the  seed  to  garnering  the  grain ;  find  some 
chance  for  saving,  every  day,  from  harvest  round  to  har- 
vest again,  and  that,  too,  without  pinching  useful  expend- 
itures. These  things  the  farmers  of  England  had  to  do, 
and  consequently  did  them.  The  less  energetic  and 
thrifty,  one  by  one,  dropped  out  of  a  contest  so  severe  and 
unremitting ;  those  who  survived  studied  their  business 
as  never  before,  scanned  their  expenses  as  men  do  who 
Lave  small  margin  for  waste,  brought  the  latest  results  of 
chemical  and  physiological  science  into  their  selection  of 
crops  and  of  breeding  animals,  made  a  business,  and  not  a 
drinking  bout,  of  the  annual  fair,  set  up  agricultural  clubs, 
compared  notes  among  themselves,  and  read  Mr.  Caird's 
letters  in  the  Times. 

But,  thirdly,  a  rise  of  wages  due  to  a  quickened  compe- 
tition on  the  part  of  the  wages  class  become  more  intelli- 
gent, frugal,  and  self-assertive,  should  it  proceed  so  far, 
after  exhausting  the  two  resources  already  named,  as  to 
cut  into  the  profits  of  the  employing  class,  as  a  whole, 
would  bring  a  partial  compensation  in  the  increased  dig- 


EMPLOYERS  PARTLY  PAID  IN  HONOR.          259 

nity  and  the  heightened  intellectual  gratification  attend- 
ing the  conduct  of  business  and  the  control  of  labor,  under 
such  a  condition.  I  have  said,  in  a  previous  chapter,  that 
the  pride  of  directing  great  operations,  and  the  sense  of 
power  in  moving  masses  of  men  at  will,  could  not,  at 
present  at  least,  be  relied  upon,  primarily  or  principally, 
as  furnishing  the  motive  to  production  on  the  part  of  the 
employing  class.  And  yet  we  know  these  do  enter,  in  no 
inconsiderable  degree,  to  make  up  the  remuneration  of 
the  entrepreneur.  It  is  true  that  but  a  small  portion  of 
the  human  race  are  much  alive  to  these  feelings,  but  it 
is  also  true  that  the  men  of  the  entrepreneur  stamp  are 
just  those  of  all  in  the  world  to  respond  to  such  im- 
pulses.1 

We  have  a  very  pleasant  and  instructive  picture,  by 
Mr.  Gould  in  his  report  to  the  British  government  in 
1872,  of  the  relations  existing  between  the  employer  and 
the  laborer  in  Switzerland.  No  country  has  achieved 
industrial  success  under  heavier  disadvantages.  No  conti- 
nental country  has  developed  a  higher  order  of  business 
managers.  The  Swiss  employers  maintain  themselves 
against  a  severe  and  unremitting  competition  only  by  the 
constant  exercise  of  all  the  industrial  virtues.  But  the 
Swiss  laborers  are  politically  and  socially  their  equals. 
The  employer  has  no  feeling  of  degradation  in  the  contact : 
the  laborer  no  feeling  of  inferiority.  Perfect  democracy 
and  universal  education  have  cast  out  all  notions  of  that 
sort  as  between  free  Switzers.  Hence  the  employers  of 
labor  of  every  class,  even  such  as  are  wealthy,  are  found 
in  general  among  their  men,  not  to  be  distinguished  from 

1  "As,  even  wlien  relieved  from  tlie  pressure  of  necessity,  the 
large-brained  Europeans  voluntarily  enter  on  enterprises  or  activities 
•which  the  savage  could  not  keep  up,  even  to  satisfy  urgent  wants  ; 
BO  their  larger  brained  descendants  will,  in  a  still  higher  degree,  find 
their  gratification  in  careers  entailing  still  greater  mental  expend!, 
tures."— H.  Spencer,  Principles  of  Biology,  II.  520. 


260  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

them  in  appearance,  and  taking  hold  freely  with  them  at 
any  part  of  the  work,  as  occasion  serves.1 

I  cannot  but  believe  that,  as  the  working  classes  advance 
in  individual  and  mutual  intelligence,  and  push  their  em- 
ployers closer  with  a  more  searching  and  vital  competition, 
more  and  more  will  the  reward  of  the  employer  come  to 
consist  of  the  zest  of  intellectual  activity,  the  joys  of 
creative  energy,  the  honor  of  directing  affairs,  and  the 
social  distinctions  of  mastership. 

For  after  all,  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  employ- 
ment of  labor  is  an  occupation,  as  truly  as  is  manual  labor 
itself;  and  that  the  body  of  employers  must  continue  to 
employ  labor,  or  find  other  ways  and  means  to  live.  To 
assume  that  employers  generally  are  going  to  leave  busi- 
ness on  account  of  a  reduction  of  profits,  would  be  more 
sensible  if  it  were  shown  that  they  would  also  leave  the 
world  on  that  account.  JSTot  a  little  of  the  reasoning  in 
books  as  to  what  employers  will  do,  or  capitalists  will  do, 
or  laborers  will  do,  if  something  happens  which  they  can- 
not be  expected  to  like,  practically  assumes  that  men  have 
a  choice  whether  they  will  be  born  into  this  world  or  not ; 
'  and  that,  once  in  it,  if  they  are  not  satisfied,  they  have  at 
hand  one  or  more  eligible  spheres  into  which  they  can 
pass,  easily  and  gracefully,  with  a  perfect  assurance  of 
welcome ;  and  that  indeed  they  will  be  quite  likely  to  do 
so,  unless  treated  with  distinguished  consideration  here. 

1  Mr.  Gould's  Report,  p.  346.  Mr.  Bonar  reported  in  1870:  "In 
enumerating  the  highly  favorable  circumstances  in  which  the  Swiss 
working  man  is  placed,  prominence  must  be  given  to  the  immense 
extension  of  the  principle  of  democracy,  which,  whatever  may  be  its 
defects  and  dangers  from  a  political  point  of  view,  when  pushed  to 
extremes,  serves  in  Switzerland,  in  its  economical  effects,  to  advance 
the  cause  of  the  operative,  by  removing  the  barriers  dividing  class 
from  class,  and  to  establish  among  all  grades  the  bonds  of  mutual 
sympathy  and  good  will."— Report,  p.  271.  Coxe,  in  his  travels  in 
Switzerland  during  the  last  century,  notes  the  frank,  courteous  as- 
sumption of  absolute  equality  on  the  part  of  the  Swiss  peasantry.— 
(Pinkerton,  V.  657). 


THE  EMPLOYING  CLASS.  261 

"Whereas,  the  most  of  us,  in  this  world,  do,  not  what  we 
would  like,  but  what  we  must,  or  the  best  we  can ;  and  I 
entertain  no  manner  of  doubt  that  long  after  profits  should 
be  forced  down,  if  that  were  to  happen,  below  what  might 
be  deemed  an  equitable  rate,  the  superior  men  of  everj 
country,  the  men  of  thought,  of  prudence,  and  of  natural 
command,  would  be  found  directing  and  animating  the 
movements  of  industiy. 


CHAPTER  XV 

COOPERATION  I    GETTING   RID   OF   THE    EMPLOYING   OLA88. 

IN  its  first  arid  largest  sense,  cooperation  signifies  the 
union  in  production  of  different  persons,  it  may  be  of 
different  classes  of  persons,  and  it  may  be  on  the  most 
unequal  terms.  In  this  sense,  cooperation  is  compatible 
with  the  subordination  of  the  employed  to  the  employer 
and  with  the  existence  of  industrial  "principalities  and 
powers."  In  the  sense  which  has  been  made  of  late  years 
so  popular,  and  in  which  alone  it  will  be  used  in  this 
treatise,  cooperation  means  union  in  production,  upon 
equal  terms.  It  is  democracy  introduced  into  labor. 

It  is  as  we  turn  from  discussing  the  industrial  character 
of  the  employing  class,  that  we  can  most  advantageously 
consider  the  schemes  proposed,  under  the  title  of  coopera- 
tion, for  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  the  wages 
class;  and,  at  the  same  time,  it  is  as  we  try  to  find  the 
real  significance  of  these  schemes  that  we  realize  most 
fully  the  confusion  introduced  into  the  theory  of  distribu- 
tion by  the  failure  to  discriminate  the  entrepreneur-func- 
tion, and  by  the  undue  extension  of  the  word  profits.  In 
my  opinion,  it  is  simply  not  possible  to  give  an  intelligible 
account  of  cooperation  through  the  use  of  the  definitions 
by  the  text-book  writers.  If  what  we  have  called  the 
profits  of  business  are  only  "  the  wages  of  supervision  and 
management,"  what  is  it  that  cooperation  aims  to  effect  ? 
Supervision  and  management  must  still  be  exercised,  or 
cooperation  will  come  to  a  very  speedy  end.  If  super* 


COOPERATION.  263 

vision  and  management  are  to  be  exercised,  it  must  be  by 
some  one,  and  if  the  present  supervisors  and  managers 
(the  employers,  as  I  call  them)  are  to  be  turned  adrift  or 
reduced  to  the  ranks,  then  these  duties  will  have  to  be 
performed  by  men  now  taking  some  other  part  in  indus- 
try, and  to  them  "  the  wages  of  supervision  and  manage- 
ment "  will  be  paid.  Wherein  have  the  workmen  gained 
anything  ?  It  is  fairly  to  be  presumed  that  these  peculiar 
and  difficult  duties  will  not  be  performed  any  better  by 
men  chosen  by  caucus  and  ballot,  than  by  men  selected 
through  the  stern  processes  of  unremitting  business  com- 
petition. 

If  the  wages  of  supervision  and  management  are  to  be 
paid,  in  manner  and  in  amount,  as  heretofore,  to  super- 
visors and  managers  chosen  by  the  workmen  themselves, 
we  can  readily  understand  that  the  pride  of  the  workmen 
may  be  gratified  (whether  that  will  tend  to  make  them 
more  easily  supervised  and  managed,  is  a  question  we 
need  not  anticipate) ;  but  wherein  is  the  economical  advan- 
tage ?  If  it  is  said,  wages  are  not  to  be  paid  to  the  super- 
visors and  managers,  under  the  cooperative  system,  equal 
to  those  paid  under  the  existing  industrial  organization, 
while  yet  the  work  is  done  as  well,  what  does  this  amount 
to  but  a  confession  that  the  sums  now  received  by  the 
employers  are  not  wages,  but  something  more  than,  and 
different  from,  wages;  the  difference  in  amount  represent- 
ing the  power  given  to  the  employer  by  his  industrial 
position  to  wrest  an  undue  share  of  the  products  of  in- 
dustry ? 

To  repeat :  if,  under  the  cooperative  system,  the  work 
of  "  supervision  and  management "  is  to  be  done  by  a  new 
*et  of  men  for  the  same  "  wages,"  the  workmen  will  gain 
nothing ;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  workmen,  controlling 
the  operations  of  industry  for  themselves,  can  get  the 
work  done  for  less  (and  the  great  promises  held  out  as  to 
the  benefits  of  cooperation  would  imply  that  it  must  be 


264  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

for  very  much  less),  then  it  must  be  concluded  that  em- 
ployers at  present  receive  something  more  than  and  differ- 
ent from  wages. 

But  if  we  find  it  difficult  to  conceive  what  account  one 
could  give  of  cooperation,  using  the  definitions  of  the 
text-books,  we  find  that,  if  we  stand  aside  and  allow  the 
text-book  writers  to  state  it  in  their  own  way,  the  result  is 
not  a  whit  the  more  happy.  Prof.  Cairn  es,  so  highly  dis- 
tinguished for  his  justness  and  clearness  of  reasoning, 
stumbles,  at  the  very  threshold  of  the  subject,  across  an 
obstacle  of  his  own  devising.  Thus  in  the  very  act  of 
bringing  forward  the  scheme  of  cooperation  as  a  cure  for 
the  industrial  ills  of  society,  he  makes  a  statement  of 
cooperation  which  reduces  it  to  a  nullity:  "It  appears  to 
me  that  the  condition  of  any  substantial  improvement  of  a 
permanent  kind  in  the  laborer's  lot  is  that  the  separation 
of  industrial  classes  into  laborers  and  capitalists  shall  not 
be  maintained ;  that  the  laborer  shall  cease  to  be  a  mere 
laborer — in  a  word,  that  profits  shall  be  brought  to  reen- 
force  the  wages  fund?'  *  And  again,  more  tersely :  "  The 
characteristic  feature  of  cooperation,  looked  at  from  the 
economic  point  of  view,  is  that  it  combines  in  the  same 
person  the  two  capacities  of  laborer  and  capitalist"* 
This  needs  but  to  be  looked  at  a  moment  to  reveal  its 
utter  fallacy.  Remember,  this  is  not  the  declaration  of  an 
irresponsible  philanthropist  that  every  workman  ought  to 
have  a  palace  and  a  coach,  but  the  grave  statement  of  an 
accountable  economist  as  to  the  manner  in  which  the  wel 
fare  of  the  working  class  may,  under  economical  condi- 


1  "  Some  Leading  Principles,"  etc.,  p.  339. 

•  "  Essays  on  Political  Economy."  How  singularly  unfortunate 
this  would  be  as  a  definition,  even  were  Prof.  Cairnes  not  mistaken  in 
his  general  view  of  coo'peration,  will  be  seen  when  we  say  that  the 
above  would  be  a  very  good  description  of  a  peasant  proprietor,  or 
email  American  farmer.  He  "combines  in  the  same  person  the  two 
capacities  of  laborer  and  capitalist."  Is  he  a  cofiperator  ? 


GETTING  E1D  OF  THE  ENTREPRENEUR.         263 

tions,  be  advanced.  What  is  this  industrial  panacea! 
Why,  the  laborers  are  to  become  capitalists.  A  raost 
felicitous  result  truly ;  but  how  is  it  to  be  accomplished  ? 
By  saving  their  own  earnings  ?  But  this  they  can  and  do 
accomplish  at  present ;  and,  through  the  medium  of  the 
bank  of  savings,  they  ma}r  and  do  lend  their  money  in 
vast  amounts  to  the  employing  class  (oftentimes  to  their 
individual  employers),  and  thus,  under  the  present  system 
profits  (in  Prof.  Cairnes'  sense)  may  be  and  are  "  brought 
to  reenforce"  wages.  Is  it,  then,  by  saving  somebody 
else's  earnings,  and  bringing  the  profits  thereof  to  "  ree'n- 
force the  wages  fund  "  ?  But  this  is  spoliation,  confiscation, 
a  resort  which  no  one  would  be  before  Prof.  Cairnes  in 
denouncing,  and  whose  disastrous  consequences  to  the 
laborers  themselves  no  one  could  more  forcibly  portray. 

We  see,  therefore,  that  Prof.  Cairnes'  statement  is  a 
form  utterly  without  content.  Cooperation  is  to  be  an 
admirable  thing,  because  in  cooperation  the  workmen  are 
to  be  both  laborers  and  capitalists.  But  if  we  inquire 
how  they  are  to  become  capitalists,  otherwise  than  at 
present,  we  fail  to  find  an  answer. 

No !  Cooperation,  considered  as  a  question  in  the  dis 
tribution  of  wealth,  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  getting 
rid  of  the  employer,  the  entrepreneur,  the  middleman. 
It  does  not  get  rid  of  the  capitalist.  In  modern  industrial 
society,  that  society  which  Prof.  Cairnes  is  contemplating 
when  he  finds  the  condition  of  the  workman  hard  and 
requiring  relief,  there  are  three  functions,  not  two  merely  ; 
and  the  reform  to  be  effected  through  cooperation,  if 
indeed  cooperation  be  practicable,  is  by  combining  in  the 
same  person,  not  the  labor  function  and  the  capital  func- 
tion, but  the  labor  function  and  the  entrepreneur  function. 


What  then  is  the  attitude  of  laborers  in  cooperation  ? 
To  the  employer  they  say :  You  have  performed  an  im- 


266  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

portant  part  in  production,  and  you  have  performed  it 
well ;  but  you  are  now  relieved.  You  have  charged  too 
high  for  your  services.  Your  annual  profits,  taking  good 
years  and  bad  together,  are  greater  than  we  need  to  pay 
to  get  the  work  done,  if  we  will  take  the  responsibilities 
of  business  on  ourselves,  and  exercise  a  forethought, 
patience,  and  pains  we  have  had  no  call  to  exercise  while 
you  were  in  charge.  Up  to  this  time  the  state  of  the  case 
has  been  this  : 

1.  A  product,  varying  with  seasons  and  circumstances 
multifarious. 

2.  Our  wages,  fixed ;  you  making  yourself  responsible 
for  their  payment,  whatever  be  the  character  of  the  season 
or  the  state  of  the  market,  yourself  receiving  nothing  till 
we  are  paid. 

3.  From  a  variable  quantity  deducting  a  fixed  quantity 
leaves  a  variable  remainder,  viz.,  your  profits  fluctuating 
with  good  or  bad  fortune,  good  or  bad  management. 

Hereafter  the  state  of  the  case  will  be  : 

1.  A  product,  variable,  so  long  as  the  laws  of  nature 
remain  the  same. 

2.  A  fixed  salary  paid  to  a  manager  whom  we  select, 
and  to  whom  we  make  ourselves  responsible  with  what- 
ever we  possess,  meanwhile  receiving  nothing  till  he  is 
paid. 

3.  From  a  variable  quantity  deducting  a  certain  quan- 
tity leaves  a  variable  result :   our  earnings,  no  longer 
called  wages,  greater  in  good  years,  smaller  in  bad  years  ; 
greater  as  we  labor  with  zeal  and  conduct  our  business 
with  discretion,  smaller  as  we  fail  in  either  respect. 

One  word  more  before  we  part.  We  intend  no  dis- 
respect. With  workmen  who  are  ignorant,  dissolute,  un- 
willing to  subordinate  the  present  to  the  future,  incapable 
of  organization,  such  services  as  you  are  qualified  to  render 
are  absolutely  indispensable ;  and  we  will  not  say  that 
such  remuneration  as  you  exact  is  excessive.  But  we  pro- 


NATURE  OF  CO-OPERATION.  gffl 

fees  better  things.  We  are  prepared  to  exercise  patience, 
industry,  economy,  and  to  subject  our  individual  desires 
to  the  general  will,  for  the  sake  of  dividing  among  our- 
selves the  profits  you  have  been  accustomed  to  make  out 
of  us.1  We  know  it  will  be  hard ;  but  we  believe  it  can 
be  done.  If  men  are  not  fit  for  an  industrial  republic, 
then  they  must  submit  to  the  despot  of  industry,  and  they 
have  no  right  to  complain  of  Civil  List  and  Privy  Purse. 
But  we  are  republicans,  cheerfully  accepting  all  the  re- 
sponsibilities of  freedom,  and  boldly  laying  claim  to  all  its 
privileges. 

This  is,  in  effect,  what  the  laborers,  by  cooperation,  say 
to  the  entrepreneur.  Do  they  give  the  capitalist  his 
conge  after  the  same  fashion  ?  Do  they  assert  independ- 
ence of  him,  and  ability  to  go  along  without  him  ?  Not 
in  the  least.  Not  a  word  of  it.  Cooperation  is  not  going 
to  rid  them  of  dependence  on  capital.  They  are  to  bj 
just  as  dependent  on  the  capitalist  as  were  their  employers 
whose  place  they  aspire  to  fill.  They  know  that  they 
must  have  just  as  much  and  just  as  good  machinery,  just 
as  abundant  and  good  materials,  as  competing  establish- 
ments under  entrepreneur  management.  So  far  as  they 
themselves  have  capital,  the  results  of  their  savings  out  of 
past  wages,  they  will  employ  these  and  receive  the  returns 
therefrom  directly,  instead  of  lending  it  to  the  entrepre- 
neur through  the  savings  bank  and  getting  interest  there- 
for. So  far  as  they  want  capital  for  their  operations  over 
what  they  can  scrape  together,  they  must  go  to  the  banks  or- 
to  private  lenders,  and  pay  as  high  a  price  for  its  use  as 
their  quondam  employer  was  wont  to  do ;  indeed,  for 

1  "  A  scheme  ...  by  which  the  laborer  can  unite  the  functions 
and  earn  the  wages  of  laborer  and  employer  by  superseding  the  neces- 
sity of  using  the  services  of  the  latter  functionary ." — Prof.  Rogers,  Pol. 
Econ.,  108.  This  is  a  strictly  accurate,  and  but  for  the  regretable  use 
of  the  word  wages,  would  be  a  felicitous,  statement  of  the  design  oi 
cooperation. 


368  THE  WAGES  qUE8T10N.} 

awhile  at  least,  probably  a  higher  price,  as  their  credit 
will  not  be  likely  to  be  so  good  at  first  as  his.  And  if 
cooperation  should  start  earliest,  and  make  most  progress, 
in  those  industries  where  the  amount  of  capital  required 
is  comparatively  small,  this  would  be  but  a  recognition  01 
the  fact  that  cooperation  has  no  tendency  to  free  the  labor- 
ing class  from  any  domination  of  capital,  of  which  com- 
plaint may  have  been  made,  but  that  its  sole  object  is  to 
GET  RID  OF  THE  ENTREPRENEUR. 

Such  being,  as  I  apprehend  it,  the  true  nature  of  coop- 
eration, let  us  inquire  as  to  the  advantages  which  may  be 
anticipated  from  it,  if  accomplished ;  as  to  the  obstacles  to 
be  encountered  by  it ;  and  as  to  the  probability  of  its 
success  in  any  such  measure  as  to  afford  an  appreciable 
relief  from  the  peculiar  hardships  of  the  wages  class.  Let 
it  be  remembered  that  it  is  the  question  of  wages,  and  not 
the  question  of  labor,  which  cooperation  aims  to  solve. 
The  welfare  of  labor  depends  on  the  laws  of  production, 
under  the  rule  of  diminishing  returns,  taken  in  connection 
with  the  laws  of  population.  The  question  of  wages  is  a 
question  in  the  distribution  of  wealth,  and  arises  out  of 
the  dependence  of  a  portion  of  the  laboring  population 
upon  the  entrepreneur-class  for  employment. 

What,  then,  might  we  fairly  look  to  cooperation  to 
accomplish  ? 

Considering  the  scheme  from  the  laborer's  point  of  view, 
we  say : 

,     First,  to  reap  the  profits  of  the  entrepreneur,  which 
are  very  large,1  large  enough  if  divided  among  the  wages 


»  "  Double  interest  is,  in  Great  Britain,  reckoned  what  the  mer- 
chants call  a  good,  moderate,  reasonable  profit."  Adam  Smith  1, 102. 

Sir  Arch.  Alison  gives  as  an  argument  against  what  would  practically 
be  cooperation,  that  the  profits  if  divided  among  the  laborers,  "  would 
not  make  an  addition  to  them  of  more  than  thirty  or  forty  per  cent " 
'-(Hist.  Europe,  xxii,  237.)  "Profits  "here  include  both  the  returns 
of  capital  and  the  gains  of  the  middleman.  Prof.  Senior  says;  "it 


ADVANTAGES  OF  CO-OPERATION.  269 

class  to  make  a  substantial,  addition  to  their  means  of  sub- 
sistence. 

Second:  to  secure  employment  independently  of  the 
will  of  the  "  middle  man."  It  has  been  shown  in  a  pre- 
vious chapter,  that  the  interest  which  the  employer  has  in 
production  is  found  in  the  balance  of  profit  left  after  the 
payment  of  wages.  The  payment  of  these,  perhaps  to 
the  extent  of  ten,  twenty,  or  fifty  times  his  profit,  is  to  him 
merely  a  necessary  means  to  that  end.  It  may  be,  as  has 
been  said,  that  his  relations  to  a  body  of  customers  shall 
be  such  as  to  induce  him  to  continue  producing  even 
though,  for  a  time,  he  sinks  his  own  profit.  After  the 
effect  of  this  has  been  exhausted,  however,  and  it  is  soon 
exhausted,  he  will  pay  wages  only  to  get  a  profit.  But 
the  condition  of  the  market  will  often  be  such  as  to  ren- 
der him  exceedingly  doubtful  of  his  profit,  or  even  appre- 
hensive of  a  loss ;  and  then  his  whole  interest  in  produc- 
tion ceases.  Because  he  can  not  see  his  way  to  make  ten 
or  five  thousand  dollars  profit,  he  is  ready  to  stop  a  pro- 
duction, the  agencies  and  instrumentalities  of  which  are 
wholly  at  his  command,  which  involves  the  payment  of 
one  or  two  hundred  thousand  dollars  in  wages.  Now, 
with  reference  to  such  an  oft  recurring  condition  of  in- 
dustry, a  body  of  workmen  may  properly  say  that, 
while  they  cannot  blame  the  employer  for  refusing  to  risk 
the  payment  of  such  large  amounts  in  wages  to  them, 
without  a  reasonable  assurance  of  getting  it  back,  with  a 

may  be  laid  down  generally,  that  in  no  country  have  profits  continued 

for  any  considerable  period  at  the  average  rate  of  fifty  per  cent  per 

annum."     (Pol.  Econ.,  p.  140.) 
Mr.  Purdy  estimates  the  division  of  the  annual  product  of  the  land 

of  England  and  Wales  as  follows : 

Landlord's  share  (returns  of  capital) £43,955,963 

Farmer's  share  (profits) 21,477,981 

Laborer's  share  (wages) 39,766  156 

£104,200,100 
[Statistical  Journal  a  tlv,  868.] 


270  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

profit,  in  the  price  of  the  goods,  yet  they  are  much  dis 
posed  to  take  the  responsibility  of  production  upon  them- 
selves. Thus,  especially  in  branches  of  manufacture 
where  the  value  of  the  materials  bears  a  small  proportion 
to  the  value  of  the  finished  goods,  they  might  propose  to 
go  on  producing  moderately  in  spite  of  the  most  unfavora- 
ble aspect  of  the  market,  on  the  ground  that  they  might 
just  as  well  be  laboring  as  lying  idle,  and  sell  the  product 
for  what  it  would  bring.  All  they  should  thus  receive 
would  be  clear  gain,  as  against  a  period  of  enforced  idle- 
ness, and  it  might  not  infrequently  happen  that,  on  settling 
up  their  venture,  they  would  find  a  turn  in  the  market 
giving  them  a  compensation  as  large  or  nearly  as  large  as 
usual. 

But  it  may  be  asked  why  should  not  the  employer  in 
times  of  business  depression,  agree  with  his  workmen  to 
pay  them  whatever  he  should  find  in  the  result  he  could 
afford.  But  this  would  be  cooperation,  slightly  disguised. 
The  essence  of  wages  is  that  they  are  stipulated  before- 
hand :  the  essence  of  profits  is  that  they  are,  as  DeQuincey 
calls  them,  "the  leavings  of  wages,"  and  therefore  vary 
as  the  product  varies  under  the  varying  conditions  of 
industry,  natural  or  artificial.  It  is  of  the  essence  of  the 
relation  of  employer  and  employed,  that  the  employer 
secures  to  the  employed  their  wages,  and  after  that, 
appropriates  his  own  remuneration.  Were  the  employed 
to  consent  to  give  the  employer  his  profit  first,  and  take 
their  wages  afterwards,  their  relations  would  merely  be 
reversed.  Five  hundred  mill  hands  entering  into  this 
arrangement  would  become  a  body  of  cooperative  produ- 
cers ;  the  so-called  manufacturer  would  become  simply 
their  paid  manager,  their  hired  man. 

It  is  true  that  arrangements  for  a  "  sliding  scale "  of 
wages,  adapted  to  the  market  price  of  the  product,  are 
sometimes  entered  into  in  coal  and  iron  mining ;  but  these 
cover  only  a  portion  of  the  ground  embraced  in  the 


ADVANTAGES  OF  CO-OPERATION.  271 

cooperative  plan,  as  the  cost  of  materials  and  transporta- 
tion, rent,  interest,  and  the  general  expenses  of  business 
management,  may  vary  so  greatly  as  very  much  to  reduce, 
and  at  times  to  destroy,  the  employer's  expectations  of 
profit,  in  spite  of  the  sliding  scale  of  wages. 

Such,  as  we  understand  the  matter,  are  the  two  econom- 
ical advantages  for  which  the  wages  class  look  to  coopera- 
tion. There  is  still  another  advantage,  non-economical 
and  therefore  not  in  our  province,  namely,  the  getting  rid 
of  the  feeling  of  dependence  and  the  securing  of  a  higher 
social  standing. 

In  addition  to  the  advantages  which  the  wages  class 
have  generally  in  contemplation  when  plans  of  coopera- 
tion are  proposed,  the  political  economist  sees  three  advan- 
tages of  high  importance  which  would  result  from  this 
system  if  fairly  established. 

First :  cooperation  would,  by  the  very  terms  of  it, 
obviate  strikes.  The  employer  being  abolished,  the  work- 
men being  now  self-employed,  these  destructive  contests 
would  cease.  The  industrial  "  non-ego  "  disappearing,  the 
industrial  egotism  which  precipitates  strikes  would  dis- 
appear also.  Second  :  the  workman  would  be  stimulated 
to  greater  industry  and  greater  carefulness.  He  would 
work  more  and  waste  less,  for,  under  the  cooperative 
system,  he  would  receive  a  direct,  instant,  and  certain 
advantage  from  his  own  increased  carefulness  and  labori- 
ousness.  It  is  true  that  the  pressure  thus  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  individual  laborer  is  not  so  great  as  in  the  case 
of  the  individual  proprietor  of  land,  since  there  the  gain  is 
all  his  own,  while  here  the  workman  has  to  divide  with 
his  fellow-cooperators  the  advantages  of  his  own  extra 
exertions,  looking,  though  not  with  absolute  assurance,  to 
receive  an  equivalent  from  each  of  them  in  turn.  Third  : 
the  workman  would  be  incited  to  frugality.  He  has  at 
once  furnished  him  the  best  possible  opportunity  for  in- 
vesting his  savings,  namely,  in  materials  and  implements 


873  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

which  he  is  himself  to  use  in  labor.  Especially  in  the 
early  days  of  cooperative  industry,  when  the  great  need  of 
cooperators  is  capital,  will  this  pressure  be  felt,  constrain- 
ing the  workman  to  invest  in  his  trade  all  of  his  earnings 
that  can  be  spared  from  necessary  subsistence.  Capital 
thus  saved  and  thus  invested  is  likely  to  be  cared  for  and 
used  to  the  best  ability  of  the  cooperators.  They  will 
make  the  most  of  it,  for  it  will  have  cost  them  dear. 

The  additional  considerations  that  cooperation  tends  to 
improve  the  moral,  social,  and  political  character  of  the 
workman,  by  giving  him  a  larger  stake  in  society,  making 
his  remuneration  depend  more  directly  on  his  own  con- 
duct, and  allowing  him  to  participate  in  the  deliberations 
and  decisions  of  industry :  these  considerations,  being 
non-economical,  belong  to  the  statesman  and  the  moralist. 


Here  are  several  distinct  advantages,  not  fanciful  but 
real  and  unquestionable,  which  together  make  up  an  argu- 
ment for  cooperation  which  is  simply  unanswerable  and 
overwhelming,  unless  there  is  validity  in  our  theory  of 
the  character  and  functions  of  the  employing  class. 

In  spite  of  these  marked  advantages,  however,  we  have 
to  note  that  cooperation  in  mechanical  industry  has 
achieved  a  very  slight  and  even  doubtful  success.  Mr. 
Frederick  Harrison  has  called  attention  in  the  Fortnightly 
Review  l  to  the  fact  that  the  vast  majority  of  all  the 
cooperative  establishments  maintained  in  England  are 
simply  stores,  i.  e.  shops,  "for  the  sale  of  food  and  some- 
times clothing."  "  These,  of  course,  cannot  affect  the  con- 
dition of  industry  materially.  Labor  here  does  not  in  any 
sense  share  in  the  produce  with  capital.  The  relation  of 
employer  and  employed  remains  just  the  same,  and  not  a 
single  workman  would  change  the  conditions  of  his  em- 

1  Fortnightly  Review,  III.,  482. 


SMALL  SUCCESS  OF  COOPERATION.  273 

ployment  if  the  store  were  to  extinguish  all  the  shops  of 
a  town." 

The  industrial  cooperative  societies,  Mr.  Harrison  con- 
tinues, are  mainly  flour  mills  and  cotton  mills.  The  flour 
mills  chiefly  supply  members,  though  they  often  employ 
persons  unconnected  with  the  society,  at  ordinary  market 
wages,  and  on  the  usual  terms.  They  are  joint-stock 
companies,  for  a  specific  purpose,  like  gas  or  railway  com 
panics.  The  only  true  instances  of  manufacturing  coop- 
erative societies  of  any  importance  are  the  cotton  mills. 
"  Some  of  the  mills  never  got  to  work  at  all ;  some  took 
the  simple  form  of  joint-stock  companies  in  few  hands ; 
others  passed  into  the  hands  of  small  capitalists,  or  the 
shares  were  concentrated  among  the  promoters.  In  fact, 
there  is  now,  I  believe,  no  cooperative  cotton  mill,  owned 
by  working  men,  in  actual  operation,  on  any  scale,  with 
the  notable  exception  of  Rochdale.  .  .  .  Here  and 
there,  an  association  of  bootmakers,  hatters,  painters,  or 
gilders,  is  carried  on,  upon  a  small  scale,  with  varying 
success.  .  .  .  But  small  bodies  of  handicraftsmen  (or 
rather  artists),  working  in  common,  with  moderate  capital, 
plant  and  premises,  obviously  establish  nothing." 

This  is  certainly  a  discouraging  account  to  come  from  a 
labor-champion,  at  the  end  of  thirty  years  of  effort,  and 
after  the  inauguration  of  so  many  hopeful  enterprises 
which  have  enjoyed  an  amount  of  gratuitous  advertise- 
ment, from  philanthropic  journals  and  sanguine  econo- 
mists, which  would  have  sufficed  to  sell  a  hundred  millions 
of  railroad  bonds,  or  make  the  fortunes  of  a  hundred 
manufacturing  establishments. 

A  later  writer  gives  a  not  more  encouraging  picture : 
"  A  large  proportion  of  all  cooperative  societies  are  dealers 
in  food,  provisions,  and  articles  of  clothing,  consumed 
chiefly  by  themselves  and  families.  Others,  but  in  a  small 
ratio,  are  manufacturers  of  flax,  spinners  of  cotton  or  wool, 
and  manufacturers  of  shoes,  etc.  But  very  few  of  them 


374  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

succeed  ;  and  the  failures  are  to  be  found  chiefly  in  these 
attempts  at  production."  1 

The  same  tale  comes  from  France,  where  these  enter- 
prises were  inaugurated  during  the  revolutionary  period 
of  1848.  M.  Ducarre's  report  of  1875,  from  the  Commis- 
sion on  Wages  and  the  Relations  between  Workmen  and 
their  Employers,  claims  even  less  success  for  cooperative 
production  in  that  country  than  is  reported  in  England 
and  Germany.2 

In  Switzerland,  the  nursery  of  accomplished  artisans, 
whose  citizens  are  trained  in  self-government  more  per- 
fectly than  those  of  any  other  country  in  the  world,  we 
find,  at  the  latest  date  for  which  the  facts  are  given,3  only 
thirteen  small  cooperative  societies  of  production.  In 
these  inconsiderable  results,  if  not  failure,  of  cooperative 
manufacturing,  we  find  the  most  striking  testimony  that 
could  be  given  to  the  importance  of  the  entrepreneur- 
function  in  modern  industry.  Small  groups  of  highly 
skilled  artisans — artists,  Mr.  Harrison  would  call  them — • 
carefully  selected,  using  inexpensive  materials  and  small 
"  plant,''  and  working  for  a  market 4  close  at  hand,  per- 
haps for  customers  personally  known,  may  achieve  success 
by  the  exercise  of  no  impossible  patience  and  pains.  But 
where  laborers  of  very  various  qualifications,  of  all  ages 
and  both  sexes,  are  to  be  brought  together  in  industries 


1  Social  Science  Transactions,  1871,  p.  585. 

*  "  Les  societes  cooperatives  n'ont  pas  eu  jusqu'a  ce  jour  en  France 
le  succes  qu'elles  ont  obtenu,  soit  en  Angleterre,  soit  en  Allemague. 
.  .  .  En  France,  les  societes  de  production  n'existent  qu'a  1'etat  de 
minimes  exceptions  " — pp.  264-5. 

'  Report  of  Mr.  Gould,  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes, 
1872,  p.  355. 

4  "  Pour  la  petite  Industrie,  les  placements  sont  en  quelque  sorte 
assures  ;  le  marche  est  la  sous  les  yeux  du  producteur,  il  en  peut  a 
chaque  instant  consulter  les  besoins,  il  reconnait  a  des  signes  certaina 
1'engorgement  et  la  plethore,  aussi  bien  que  rinsuffisance  et  la  disette." 
— Blanqui  (aine),  Cours  d'lsconomie  Industrielle,  II.,  62. 


DIFFICULTIES  OF  COOPERATION.  275 

which  involve  a  great  many  processes  requiring  differing 
degrees  of  strength  and  skill,  and  which  produce  goods 
for  distant,  and  perhaps,  at  the  time  of  production, 
unknown  markets,  we  see  as  yet  scarcely  a  sign  of  the 
services  of  the  employer  being  dispensed  with.  What, 
then,  is  the  reason  for  this  comparative  failure  of  indus- 
trial cooperation  ?  I  answer,  the  difficulty  of  effecting 
cooperation  on  a  large  scale  is  directly  as  its  desirableness. 
It  is  solely  because  of  the  importance  of  the  entrepreneur- 
function  that  the  employing  class  are  enabled  to  realize 
those  large  profits  which  so  naturally  and  properly  excite 
the  desires  of  the  wages  class ;  and  it  is  for  precisely  the 
same  reason  that  it  is  found  so  difficult  to  get  rid  of  the 
employing  class. 

The  qualities  of  the  successful  entrepreneur  are  rare. 
"We  need  only  to  look  around  us,  within  the  most  limited 
field,  and  for  the  shortest  time,  to  see  how  vast  a  differ- 
ence is  made  by  the  able,  as  contrasted  with  the  merely 
common-place,  not  to  say  bad,  conduct  of  business ;  and 
how  great  losses  may  be  incurred  by  the  failure  to  realize 
all  the  conditions  of  purchase,  production,  and  sale.  And 
the  more  extensively  markets  are  opened  by  the  removal 
of  commercial  restrictions,  the  more  intense  competition 
becomes  under  the  opportunities  of  frequent  communica- 
tion and  rapid  transportation,  the  richer  the  prizes,  the 
heavier  the  penalties,  of  the  entrepreneur;  the  wider  the 
breach  between  the  able  and  the  commonplace  manage- 
ment of  business.  In  these  days,  a  person  who  should, 
upon  the  strength  of  respectable  general  abilities,  under- 
take a  branch  of  manufacture  to  which  he  had  not  been 
trained,  and  in  which  he  had  not  long  been  exercised  in 
subordinate  positions,  would  run  a  serious  risk  of  sinking 
a  large  part  of  his  capital  in  a  few  years,  it  might  be  in  a 
few  months ;  and  this,  without  any  great  catastrophe  in 
trade,  or  any  flagrant  instance  of  misconduct  in  the  opera- 

U* 


876  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

tions  undertaken.  Simply  not  to  do  well  is  generally,  in 
production,  to  do  very  ill. 

It  is,  of  course,  hard  for  workmen  to  see  such  large 
amounts  taken  out  of  the  product  to  remunerate  the 
entrepreneur,  leaving  so  much  the  less  to  be  divided 
among  themselves ;  and  the  ambition  which  leads  them  to 
attempt  to  earn  these  profits  by  undertaking  this  part  in 
industry,  is  wholly  honorable  and  commendable.  But  it 
is  clear  that  it  is  a  great  deal  better,  even  for  the  work- 
men, that  this  heavy  tax  should  be  paid  to  the  entrepre- 
neur, than  that  production  should  be  carried  on  without 
the  highest  skill,  efficiency,  and  energy.  The  proof  is 
that,  as  a  rule  almost  without  exception,  those  employers 
who  make  the  highest  profits  are  the  employers  who, 
when  regularity  of  employment  is  taken  into  account,  as 
it  ought  to  be,  pay  the  highest  wages.  Business  must  be 
well  conducted,  no  matter  how  much  is  paid  for  it :  that 
is  the  first  condition  of  modern  industrial  life.  The  ques- 
tion who  shall  conduct  it,  must,  even  in  the  interest  of  the 
working  classes,  be  secondary  and  subordinate. 

Is  it  asked,  why  may  not  the  men  who  have  the  knowl- 
edge, skill,  and  experience  requisite  for  the  conduct  of 
business,  be  employed  as  agents  of  cooperators,  receiving 
wages  for  their  services  ?  In  the  first  place,  I  answer, 
the  same  men  cannot  conduct  the  same  business  as  well 
for  others  as  for  themselves.  You  might  as  well  expect 
the  bow  to  send  the  arrow  as  far  when  unbent  as  when 
bent.  The  knowledge  that  he  will  gain  what  is  gained ; 
that  he  will  lose  what  is  lost,  is  essential  to  the  temper  of 
the  man  of  business.  No  matter  how  faithfully  disposed, 
he  simply  cannot  meet  the  exigencies  and  make  the 
choices  of  purchase,  production,  and  sale,  if  the  gain  or 
the  loss  is  to  be  another's,  with  the  same  spirit  as  if  the 
gain  or  the  loss  were  to  be  all  his  own.  That  alertness 
and  activity  of  mind,  that  perfect  mingling  of  caution  and 
audacity,  those  unaccountable  suggestions  of  possibilities, 


DIFFICULTIES  OF  COOPERATION.  2TJ 

opportunities,  and  contingencies,  which,  at  least,  make 
the  difference  between  great  and  merely  moderate  success, 
are  not  to  be  had  at  a  salary.1 

Yet  I  do  not  claim  that  the  effect  of  this  would  extend 
so  far  as  to  neutralize  all  the  great  advantages2  of  coopera- 
tion. If  a  body  of  workmen  possessed  the  faith  and 
patience  necessary  to  carry  them  through  the  period  of 
outlay  and  experiment,  if  they  had  the  good  judgment  to 
select  the  best  manager  they  could  find,  the  good  sense 
to  pay  him  enough  to  keep  him  solidly  attached  to  them, 
and  the  good  humor  to  support  him  heartily,  submit 
promptly  to  his  decisions,  and  remain  harmonious  among 
themselves,  cooperation  might  become  a  triumphant  suc- 
cess with  them.  But  let  us  see  how  much  all  this 
demands  from  poor  human  nature. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  all-important  choice  of  a 
manager.  Not  to  dwell  on  the  danger  of  a  body  of  work- 
men mistaking  presumption  for  a  true  self-confidence,  a 
brave  show  of  information  for  thorough  knowledge,  an 
affected  brusqueness  for  decision  of  character;  or  being 
led  away  by  the  plausibility  and  popular  acts  of  a  candi- 
date, we  have  the  almost  certainty  that  such  a  body  would, 
in  the  result,  lose  the  best  man,  if  not  by  turns  every 
competent  man,  through  indisposition  to  pay  a  sufficient 
salary.  In  his  address  before  the  Cooperative  Congress 
already  quoted,  Mr.  Thomas  Brassey  asked  :  "  "Where  shall 
we  find  cooperative  shareholders  ready  to  give  £5,000  a 
year  for  a  competent  manager  ?  And  yet  the  sum  I  have 

1  "It  is  impossible  to  hire  commercial  genius,  or  the  instincts  of  a 
skilful  trader."— Fred'k  Harrison,  Fortnightly  Review,  III,  492. 

3  "  I  am  confident  that  the  manual  operations  will  be  skilfully  and 
probably  more  diligently  performed  in  a  coSperative  establishment. 
The  personal  interests  of  the  workmen  will  be  so  directly  advanced 
by  their  application  and  perseverance  that  they  will  naturally  work 
hard.  But  their  best  efforts  will  fail  to  ensure  a  satisfactory  result, 
unless  the  general  organization  is  perfect  also." — Mr.  Brassey,  at  Hali 
fax.  The  Times'  Report. 


278  THE  WAGES   QUESTION. 

named  is  sometimes  readily  paid  by  private  employers  to 
an  able  lieutenant."  *  But  it  is  not  merely  an  able  lieu- 
tenant, but  a  u  captain  of  industry,"  that  cooperators  must 
secure,  if  they  are  to  conduct  purchase,  production,  and 
sale  in  competition  with  establishments  under  individual 
control.  Can  we  imagine  such  a  body  paying  $50,000  a 
year  to  a  manager,  when  they  receive  on  an  average  not 
more  than  $500  themselves  ?  Would  not  jealousy  of  such 
high  wages  sooner  or  later,  in  one  way  or  another,  over- 
come their  sense  of  their  own  interest  ?  Even  if  we  sup- 
pose them  intellectually  convinced  of  the  expediency, 
upon  general  principles,  of  paying  largely  for  good  service, 
will  they  not  be  found  calculating  that  for  this  particular 
manager  this  particular  sum  is  altogether  too  much,  or, 
without  any  disparagement  of  his  merits,  experimenting 
to  see  how  much  they  can  "  cut  him  down  "  without  driv- 
ing him  off,  an  experiment  always  dangerous,  always 
breeding  ill-feeling,  and  preparing  the  way  for  a  separa- 
tion. For  why  should  the  man  who  has  the  skill  and 
knowledge  necessary  to  conduct  business  on  his  own 
account  be  content  to  remain  on  a  salary  greatly  below 
the  amount  he  might  fairly  expect  to  earn  for  himself  ? 
Is  it  said  his  salary  is  regular  and  his  profits  always  more 
or  less  uncertain  2  But  the  men  of  the  temper  to  conduct 
business  are  not  generally  timid  men  or  self-distrustful ; 
they  like  responsibility  and  the  exercise  of  authority — it 
is  a  part  of  their  pay.  !N~or  are  they  averse  to  a  risk  well 
taken ;  it  braces  them  up  and  makes  the  game  exciting. 
Is  it  said  that  want  of  capital  may  constrain  some  of  the 
best  men  to  seek  employment  at  the  hand  of  such  associa- 
tions ?  This  is  true,  in  a  degree,  and  here  is  one  of  the 
possibilities  of  cooperation.  Yet  if  a  man  have  the  real 
stuff  in  him,  want  of  capital  is  not  likely  long  to  keep  him 
under.  The  history  of  modern  industry  teaches  that. 

1  The  Times'  Report. 


DIFFICULTIES  OF  COOPERATION.  279 

Getting  into  business  in  the  niDst  humble  way,  the  mer- 
chants from  whom  he  buys  his  materials,  those  to  whom 
he  sells  his  products,  and  the  bankers  to  whom  he  resorts 
with  his  modest  note,1  all  soon  take  his  measure,  and  when 
they  have  taken  his  measure  they  give  him  room.  Genius 
will  have  its  appointed  course  :  antagonism  and  adversity 
only  incite,  inspire,  instruct. 

We  have  thus  far  spoken  only  of  those  difficulties  of 
cooperation  which  attend  the  selection  and  retention  of 
able  managers.  On  the  difficulties  to  which  this  is  but  an 
introduction,  arising  out  of  the  tendency  to  intrigue  which 
exists  in  all  numerous  bodies,  and  the  disposition  to 
meddlesomeness  on  the  part  of  committees  or  boards  of 
directors,2  I  need  not  dwell.  A  sufficient  lively  impres- 
sion of  them  is  likely  to  be  created  by  the  merest  mention. 
I  will  only  further  refer  to  an  embarrassment  which 
attends  the  extension  of  the  cooperative  plan  to  all 
branches  of  manufacture  which  employ  laborers  of  very 
different  degrees  of  industrial  efficiency.  Thus,  in  a  cot- 
ton or  woolen  mill  are  to  be  found  persons  of  both  sexes 
and  of  all  ages,  earning  under  the  present  system  from  a 
few  pence  up  to  as  many  shillings  a  day.  Under  the 
cooperative  plan,  how  is  the  scale  of  prices  to  be  fixed  ? 
To  say  that  all  should  be  paid  alike  would  be  monstrous, 
impossible.  It  would  be  grossly  unjust,  and  would  be 
quite  sufficient  to  wreck  the  enterprise  from  the  start.3 

1  My  honored  father  has  told  me  of  the  discussion  once  held  over  a 
note  for  $250,  offered  at  the  bank  of  which  he  was  a  director,  signed 
with  the  then  unknown  name  of  James  M.  Beebe. 

a  Mr.  Thornton  (On  Labor,  p.  441)  argues  that  while  societies  of 
workingmen  may  be  unable  to  administer  their  affairs  directly,  they 
may  be  competent,  like  political  societies,  "  to  provide  for  their  own 
government."  To  the  contrary,  Mr.  Harrison  urges  (Fortnightly 
Review,  III.,  492)  that  "  he  who  is  unfit  to  manage,  is  unfit  to  direct 
the  manager." 

*  Mr.  Babbage  has  shown  (Econ.  of  Manufactures,  p.  173-183)  that 
the  earnings  of  persons  employed  in  the  production  of  pins,  in  his  day 


280  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

But  if  the  laborers  are  to  be  paid  at  different  rates,  who, 
I  ask  again,  is  to  determine  the  proportions  in  which  the 
product  shall  be  divided  ?  How  is  general  consent  to  be 
obtained  to  a  scheme  which  must  condemn  the  great 
majority  to  receive  but  a  contemptible  fraction  of  their 
proportional  share  ?  Without  general  consent,  what 
chance  of  harmonious  action  ?  But  if  we  suppose  the 
scale  of  distribution  to  be  fixed,  who  is  to  assign  the  per- 
sonnel of  the  association  to  their  several  categories,  to  say 
that  this  man  shall  go  into  one  class,  and  that  man,  who 
thinks  quite  as  well  of  himself,  shall  go  into  a  lower  class  \ 
Is  there  not  here  the  occasion,  almost  the  provocation,  of 
disputes  and  bad  blood  highly  dangerous  to  such  an  enter- 
prise ? 

I  have  no  desire  to  multiply  objections  to  this  system 
or  to  magnify  the  scope  of  those  that  offer  themselves  to 
view.  Heartily  do  1  wish  that  workingmen  might  be  found 
rising  more  and  more  to  the  demands  which  cooperation 
makes  upon  them ;  but  I  entertain  no  great  expectations 
of  success  in  this  direction.  The  reduction  of  profits 
through  increasing  intelligence,  sobriety  and  frugality  on 
the  part  of  the  wages  class,  securing  them  a  prompt,  easy 
and  sure  resort  to  the  best  market,  is  the  most  hopeful 
path  of  progress  for  the  immediate  future.  There  are  of 
course  some  departments  of  industry  where  the  services 
of  the  entrepreneur  can  be  more  easily  dispensed  with, 
than  in  others.  Here  cooperation  under  good  auspices 
may  achieve  no  doubtful  success. 

It  would  appear  that  if  cooperation  could  be  intro- 
duced anywhere,  it  would  be  in  agriculture :  yet  in  no 

ranged  from  4)-£d.  to  6s.  If  the  workmen  who  were  capable  of  doing 
the  higher  parts  of  the  work  (pointing,  whitening,  etc.)  were  to  be  put 
to  making  the  whole  pin,  through  all  the  ten  processes  described,  the 
cost  of  the  pins  would  be  three  and  three-quarter  times  as  great  as 
under  the  application  of  the  division  of  labor,  with  payments  to  eacli 
workman  according  to  his  capacity. 


COOPERATION.  88, 

department  of  production  have  the  experiments  tried 
proved  less  satisfactory.1  One  reason  which,  in  addition 
to  those  already  enumerated,  will  probably  always  serve  to 
delay  the  extension  of  the  cooperative  system  in  this 
direction,  is  the  great  difficulty  of  determining  the  actual 
profits  of  a  year  or  a  term  of  years,  with  reference,  as.  is 
essential,  to  the  value  of  unexhausted  improvements.  So 
long  as  the  cooperators  hold  together  and  divide  the  yearly 
produce,  all  goes  well ;  but  if  at  any  time  one  desires  to 
withdraw,  and  men  will  not  enter  into  associations  of  this 
character  without  the  right  of  retiring,  at  pleasure,  with- 
out forfeiture,  the  question  of  undivided  profits  becomes 
of  the  most  serious  importance.  To  settle  it  with  absolute 
justice  is  simply  impossible,3  and  no  method  of  arriving 
roughly  at  a  result  of  substantial  justice,  is  likely  to  avoid 
deep  dissatisfaction  and  sense  of  wrong. 

1  An  apparently  successful  experiment  in  this  direction  obtains 
notice  in  Prof.  Fawcett's  Pol.  Econ.,  pp.  292-3,  note. 

a  Perhaps  the  difficulty  of  the  problem  will  be  best  outlined,  to 
those  who  are  not  familiar  with  this  special  subject  of  undivided 
profits,  or  "  unexhausted  improvements,"  in  agriculture,  by  present- 
ing the  following  classification  of  tenants'  expenditures  on  the  soil, 
which  was  embraced  in  the  Duke  of  Richmond's  Bill  of  1875.  That 
bill  divided  improvements  into  three  categories  ;  permanent,  wasting 
and  temporary.  In  the  first  class  were  included  reclaiming,  warping, 
draining,  making  or  improving  watercourses,  ponds,  etc.,  roads, 
fences,  buildings,  and  the  planting  of  orchards  and  gardens.  With 
respect  to  these,  it  was  proposed  that  an  outgoing  tenant  should  be 
allowed  compensation  for  the  unexhausted  value  of  such  of  them  as 
he  might  have  made  within  20  years  of  the  termination  of  his  tenancy 
with  the  written  consent  of  his  landlord.  The  second  class  included 
liming,  claying,  chalking,  marling,  boring,  clay-burning,  and  planting 
hops,  and  it  was  proposed  that  the  tenant  should  be  able  to  claim  for 
these  processes,  if  done  within  seven  years  of  the  end  of  his  tenancy, 
no  consent  being  necessary.  So  also  with  respect  to  the  third  class- 
consuming  by  cattle,  sheep,  or  pigs,  of  corn,  cake,  or  other  feeding 
stuffs,  or  using  artificial  manures — where,  however,  a  claim  could  not 
go  back  beyond  two  years. 


283  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

The  difficulties  of  industrial  cooperation  have  been  so 
manifest  that  schemes  have  been  suggested  for  avoiding 
them  in  great  part,  by  methods  which  should  sacrifice  a 
proportionally  smaller  part  of  the  advantages  looked  for 
from  cooperation.  Among  these  schemes,  one,  which  seems 
to  have  been  first  definitely  brought  forward  by  Mr.  Bab- 
bage,1  has  been  tried  upon  a  considerable  scale.  By  this 
plan,  which  may  be  called  one  of  partial  cooperation,  the 
employer  is  induced  to  admit  his  workmen  to  a  participa- 
tion to  a  certain  extent  in  the  profits  of  manufacture,  while 
himself  retaining  the  full  authority  and  responsibility  of  the 
entrepreneur.  By  this  plan  the  employer  might  fairly  hope 
to  attach  his  workmen  to  himself  by  more  than  the  slight 
tie  of  daily  or  monthly  employment,  and  to  interest  them 
so  directly  in  the  production  of  the  establishment,  as  to 
secure  a  greater  activity  in  labor  and  more  carefulness  in 
avoiding  waste.  The  resulting  advantages  to  the  workmen 
would  clearly  be  both  moral  and  economical.  There  is 
quite  a  body  of  literature  relating  to  the  experiments 
in  this  direction,  of  MM.  Leclaire,3  Dupont,  Gisquet,  and 
Lemaire,  in  France ;  of  the  Messrs.  Briggs,  owners  of  exten- 
sive collieries  and  others  in  England;3 of  a  few  manufactu- 
rers in  a  small  way  in  Switzerland,4  of  M.  Cini,  an  exten- 
sive paper  manufacturer  of  Tuscany,5  and  the  Messrs. 

1  In  Mr.  Babbage's  admirable  little  work  on  "the  Economy  of  Man- 
ufactures,"  published  in  1832,  a  plan  of  industrial  organization  is  pro- 
posed on  the  idea  that  "  a  considerable  part  of  the  wages  received  by 
each  person  employed  should  depend  on  the  profits  made  by  the 
establishment."  (pp.  249-50.) 

2  J.  S.  Mill,  Pol.  Econ.,  ii.  335-7. 

»  Thornton  "  On  Labor,"  pp.  369-84— McDonnell's  Survey  of  Pol 
Econ.  220-1. 

4  Report  of  Mr.  Gould  on  the  condition  of  the  industrial  classes 
1872,  p.  355. 

•  Report  of  Mr.  Herries  on  the  condition  of  the  industrial  classes  of 
Italy.  1871  p.  234-5. 


COOPERATION. 

Brewster,1  carnage  manufacturers,  of  Broome  st., 
York.  That  something  of  the  sort  is  practicable,  with 
the  exercise  of  no  more  of  patience,  pains  and  mutual 
good  faith  than  it  is  reasonable  to  expect  of  many  em- 
ployers and  many  bodies  of  workmen,  I  am  greatly  dis- 
posed to  believe.  Many  experiments,  and  probably  much 
disappointment  and  some  failures,  will  be  required  to 
develop  the  possibilities  of  this  scheme,  and  determine  its 
best  working  shape,  yet  in  the  end  I  see  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  such  a  relation  will  be  introduced  extensively 
with  the  most  beneficial  results. 


The  objections  which  have  been  shown  to  exist  to  pro- 
ductive cooperation  do  not  apply  with  anything  like  equal 
force  to  distributive  cooperation,  so-called  (but  which 
could  more  properly  be  termed  consumptive  cooperation), 
that  is,  the  supplying  of  the  wages  class  with  the  necessa- 


1  The  proposal  of  the  Messrs.  Brewster  was  most  honorable  at  once 
to  the  good  feeling  and  to  the  sagacity  of  the  members  of  the  firm, 
especially  Mr.  J.  W.  Britton,  with  whom  the  enterprise  originated. 
The  firm  offered  to  divide  ten  per  cent  of  their  net  profits  among  their 
employees,  in  proportion  to  the  wages  severally  earned  by  them,  no 
charge  to  be  made  by  the  members  of  the  firm  for  their  services  prior 
to  this  deduction  of  ten  per  cent,  or  for  interest  on  the  capital  in- 
vested ;  the  business  of  each  year  to  stand  by  itself,  and  be  independ- 
ent of  that  of  any  other  year.  This  handsome  proposal  was  accepted 
by  the  employees,  and  an  association  formed.  The  plan  worked  to 
the  satisfaction  of  all  parties,  as  high  as  $11,000  a  year  being  divided 
among  the  hands  :  but  at  the  great  strike  of  the  trades  in  New  York 
three  years  ago,  the  workmen  of  this  establishment  were  carried  away 
by  the  general  excitement,  and  the  strong  pressure  brought  to  bear 
upon  them  from  the  outside ;  and  the  scheme  was  abandoned.  So 
long  as  it  worked,  it  worked  well ;  and  showed  that  the  plan  had 
no  financial  or  industrial  weaknesses.  The  failure  was  at  the  point 
of  patience,  forbearance  and  faith,  a  very  important  point ;  but  may 
not  masters  and  men  be  educated  up  to  this  requirement,  in  view  of 
the  great  advantages  to  result  ? 


*84  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

ries  of  life  through  agencies  established  and  supported  by 
themselves. 

By  productive  cooperation,  workmen  seek  to  increase 
their  incomes. 

By  distributive  or  consumptive  cooperation,  they  seek 
to  expend  their  incomes  to  better  advantage.  They  no 
longer  seek  to  divide  among  themselves  the  profits  of 
manufacture,  but  the  profits  of  retail 1  and  perhaps  even 
of  wholesale  2  trade. 

The  advantages  of  this  species  of  cooperation  are : 

First :  the  division  among  the  cooperators  of  the  ordi- 
nary net  profits  of  the  retail  trade. 

Second  :  the  saving  of  all  expenses  in  the  line  of  adver- 
tising, whether  in  the  way  of  printing  and  bill  posting,  or 
of  the  decoration  of  stores  with  gilding  and  frescoing, 
with  costly  counters,  shelves,  and  show  cases,  with  plate 
glass  windows  and  elaborate  lighting  apparatus,  or  ot  high 
rents  paid  on  account  of  superior  location.  The  aggre- 
gate saving  on  these  accounts  is  very  large.  The  "  union  " 
store  may  be  on  a  back  street,  with  the  simplest  arrange- 
ments, yet  the  associates  will  be  certain  to  go  to  it  for 
their  supplies,  without  invitation  through  newspapers  or 
posters. 

Third :  a  great  reduction  in  the  expenses  of  handling 
and  dealing  out  goods.  The  retail  trader  must  be  pre- 
pared at  all  times  to  serve  the  public,  and  he  does  not 
dare  to  greatly  delay  one  while  serving  another,  lest  he 
should  drive  custom  to  a  rival  shop.  He  is  therefore 

1  For  remarks  of  Messrs.  Mill  and  Cairnes  respecting  the  "  excessive 
friction,"  and  consequent  undue  profits  and  expenses  of  retail  trade, 
the  reader  is  referred  to  page  313-5. 

*  Very  recently  the  cooperative  societies  of  England  have  decided 
on  a  new  and  far  reaching  step,  and  have  undertaken  the  importation 
of  foreign  supplies  required  for  their  numerous  stores  and  shops. 
This  step  evidently  involves  a  very  large  addition  of  responsibility 
and  risk,  without,  as  I  should  apprehend,  a  proportional  gain  in  the 
event  of  success. 


COOPERATION.  285 

obliged  to  be  at  an  expense  for  clerks  and  porters  far 
exceeding  what  would  be  required  were  the  trade  of  the 
day  somewhat  more  concentrated.  Some  curious  results 
of  observations  concerning  the  average  number  of  cus 
tomers  in  shops  in  London,  are  given  in  Mr.  Head's  paper 
before  the  Social  Science  Association,1  which  may  be 
summarized  as  follows : 

1st  observation :  time,  4  to  6  o'clock  p.  M.  ;  in  88  shops 
there  were  76  persons  =  .86  persons  to  a  shop. 

2cl  observation :  time,  11  A.  M.  to  1  p.  M.  ;  54=  persons  in 
the  same  88  shops  —  .61  persons  to  a  shop. 

3d  observation  :  time,  2  to  4  P.M.  ;  114  persons  =  1.3 
persons  to  a  shop. 

Average  of  the  three  observations :  .92  persons  to  a 
shop. 

JSTow  cooperators  can  effect  a  great  saving  in  this  re- 
spect. Being  sure  of  their  custom,  they  can  control  it, 
and  concentrate  it  into  a  few  hours  of  the  day,  or  perhaps 
of  the  evening  wholly. 

Fourth  :  a  saving,  of  vast  moment,  in  the  abolition  of 
the  credit  system,  involving  as  that  does  the  keeping  of 
books,  the  rendering  of  accounts,  and  much  solicitation  of 
payment,  and,  secondly,  a  very  considerable  percentage 
of  loss  by  bad  debts. 

Fifth :  security,  so  far  as  possible  with  human  agencies, 
against  the  frauds  in  weight  and  measure  and  in  the 
adulteration  of  goods,  which  are  perpetrated  extensively 
under  the  system  of  retail  trade,  the  poorest  customers 
being  generally  those  who  suffer  most. 

The  difficulties  of  consumptive  are  fewer  and  less  severe 
than  those  of  productive  cooperation.  To  handle  and  sell 
goods  is  a  much  less  serious  business  than  to  produce 
them.  When  once  marketed,  the  contingencies  of  pro- 
duction are  past,  the  quality  of  the  goods  is  already  deter- 

1  Transactions,  1872,  pp.  449-50. 


286  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

mined,  and  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  only  moderate 
care  is  required  to  prevent  deterioration.  Then  again, 
the  profits  of  retail  trade  are  relatively  higher,  for  the 
capital  and  skill  required,  than  the  profits  of  manufacture ; 
and  hence  there  is  more  to  be  gained  by  total  or  even 
a  partial  success.  Finally  and  chiefly,  the  destination  of 
the  goods  is  already  practically  provided  for ;  the  members 
are  certain  to  take  off  what  is  bought,  if  only  ordinary  dis- 
cretion is  used  ;  waste  and  loss  are  therefore  reduced  to 
the  minimum. 

There  are,  therefore,  powerful  reasons,  in  the  nature  of 
the  case,  for  the  success  of  consumptive  cooperation.  The 
facts  bear  out  the  prognostication,  although  even  this  form 
of  association  has  had  many  disappointments  and  often 
come  to  grief,  not  always  from  causes  easily  to  be  deter- 
mined. "  Cooperation,"  says  Mr.  Holyoake,  the  historian 
of  the  movement  in  England,  "  is  the  most  unaccountable 
thing  that  is  found  amongst  the  working  classes.  Nobody 
can  tell  under  what  conditions  it  will  arise.  Why  it 
flourishes  when  it  does,  and  why  it  does  not  flourish  when 
it  should,  are  alike  inexplicable.  "Why  should  it  succeed 
in  Rochdale,  Blaydon,  and  Sowerby  Bridge,  and  never 
take  root  in  Birmingham,  Sheffield,  or  Glasgow  ?  There 
is  no  place  in  Great  Britain  so  unlikely  as  Sowerby  Bridge 
to  produce  cooperators.  There  are  no  places  so  likely  as 
London,  Manchester,  Liverpool,  Leeds,  and  Sheffield.  Yet 
cooperators  in  some  of  these  places  make  no  more  progress 
than  a  society  of  Naggletons.  In  Sheffield  the  socialists 
have  tried  cooperation  ;  the  Methodists  have  tried  it ;  the 
Catholics  have  tried  it ;  but  neither  Owen,  "Wesley,  nor 
the  Pope  have  any  success  in  that  robust  town,  whero 
mechanics  have  more  advantages,  independence,  and 
means,  and  as  much  intelligence  as  in  any  town  in  Eng- 
land." l  "We  may  fairly  presume  that  the  case  is  not  alto- 

1  Soc.  Science  Transactions,  1864,  p.  6-8. 


COOPERATION.  387 

gether  so  mysterious  as  Mr.  Holyoake  would  make  it  out 
to  be.  Lack  of  interest  in  the  result,  and  consequent  lack 
of  the  patience,  pains,  and  self-denial  necessary  to  achieve 
success,  and  unfortunate  choice  of  managers,  through  in- 
difference or  intrigue,  would  probably  explain  most  of 
the  failures  of  cooperative  trading,  where  the  principle  of 
cash  payments  has  been  strictly  adhered  to,  and  where 
the  enterprises  have  been  confined  to  the  supply  of  the 
cooperators  with  the  simple  necessaries  and  comforts  of 
life,  without  venturing  into  lines  where  fashion  and  taste 
predominate.  The  latest  statistics  attainable  show  746 
cooperative  societies  existing  in  England  and  Wales.  The 
total  share  capital  reaches  £2,784,000.  The  money  taken 
for  goods  sold  during  the  year  was  £11,379,000.  The 
largest  of  all  these  societies  is  the  "  Civil  Service  Supply 
Association,"  which  musters  4,500  associates,  and  which 
in  the  six  months  ending  February  28, 1874,  took  in,  from 
sales,  £819,428. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  these  "stores"  do  not  try  to 
undersell  the  retail  shops,  but  sell  their  goods  at  ordinary 
prices,  and  divide  all  profits,  after  a  reasonable  addition  to 
the  "reserve,"  annually  or  semi-annually,  among  their 
stockholders.  The  sums  thus  coming  once  or  twice  a  year 
to  a  workman  are  likely  to  be  so  considerable  as  strongly 
to  suggest  the  savings  bank. 

In  France,  M.  Ducarre's  report,  while  announcing  the 
comparative  failure  of  cooperative  societies  of  production, 
states  that  those  devoted  to  the  supply  of  articles  for  con- 
sumption, have  at  once  had  a  much  wider  trial  and 
achieved  a  much  larger  degree  of  success.1  In  Germany, 
Belgium,  and  Italy,  the  movement  for  consumptive  coop- 
eration is  in  full  present  vigor.3  Even  in  little  Denmark, 
where  but  one  industrial  cooperative  society  exists,  37 


1  P.  265. 

•  McDonnell's  Survey  of  Pol.  Econ.,  pp.  224-5. 


888  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

cooperative  establishments  are  reported  *  for  the  sale  of 
articles  of  domestic  consumption.  In  Austria,  account  is 
given2  of  237  cooperative  store-unions.  In  the  United 
States,  consumptive  cooperation  has  been  widely  estab- 
lished in  connection  with  the  "  Granger  "  movement,  and 
also,  more  on  its  own  merits,  through  the  organization 
known  as  the  "  Sovereigns  of  Industry."  8 

1  Report  of  Mr.  Strachy,  1870,  p.  512. 

»  Report  of  Mr.  Lytton,  1870,  p.  564. 

*  I  am  disappointed  to  find  so  little  precise  statistical  information 
in  Mr.  Chamberlain's  work  on  the  Sovereigns  of  Industry.  Figures 
of  arithmetic  are  more  needed  than  figures  of  speech,  in  discussions  oi 
cooperation. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

THE    TRUE    WAGES    QUESTION. 

IF  the  three  great  classes  which  together  make  up 
modern  industrial  society,  in  its  highest  development, 
have  been  justly  delineated,  it  will  be  seen  how  inaccu- 
rate is  that  statement  of  the  wages  question  which  makes 
it  identical  with  the  labor  question.  The  true  wages 
question  is  the  question  of  employment.  Hence  the 
popular  phrase,  "the  contest  of  labor  and  capital,"  be- 
comes at  once  revealed  as  a  misnomer.  The  true  contro- 
versy is  not  between  the  laborer  and  the  capitalist,  but  be- 
tween the  laborer  and  his  employer,  to  whom  laborer  and 
capitalist  alike  are  compelled  to  resort  for  the  opportunity 
to  produce  wealth  and  to  derive  an  income. 

In  the  highly-complicated  organization  of  modern  in- 
dustry, the  employer,  the  entrepreneur ',  stands  between  the 
capitalist  and  the  laborer,  makes  his  terms  with  each,  and 
directs  the  courses  and  methods  of  industry  with  almost 
unquestioned  authority.  To  laborer  and  to  capitalist 
alike  he  guarantees  a  reward  at  fixed  rates,  taking  for  him- 
self whatever  his  skill,  enterprise,  and  good  fortune  shall 
secure.  How  completely  the  laborer  accepts  this  situation 
of  affairs  we  see  in  the  fewness  of  the  attempts  to  estab- 
lish productive  co-operation,  as  shown  in  the  preceding 
chapter.  But  the  laborer  does  not  accept  the  situation 
more  utterly,  more  passively,  than  does  the  capitalist. 
Quite  as  closely  does  the  man  of  wealth  who  has  not  been 


290  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

trained  to  business,  respect  his  own  limitations ;  quite  as 
little  is  he  disposed  to  venture  for  himself. 

"We  have  a  striking  exemplification  of  this  impotence  of 
the  capitalist,  as  capitalist,  in  the  experience  of  the  United 
States  during  the  past  three  years.  What  have  the  capi- 
talists done,  what  can  the  capitalists  do,  to  help  them- 
selves in  the  event  of  a  withdrawal  of  the  business  class  ? 
They  have  done  nothing,  certainly,  in  the  present  crisis  : 
they  can  do  nothing  important,  of  themselves.  They  can 
lower  their  terms  and  offer  their  capital  at  diminished 
rates,  affording  enterprise  thus  a  wider  margin  for  profits  ; 
but  if  enterprise  finds  this  inducement  insufficient,  the 
capitalist  has  nothing  to  do.  The  money  lies  in  bank ; 
the  shops  and  stores  are  tenantless. 

Does  the  capitalist,  discontented  with  the  inadequacy  of 
his  remuneration  when  he  has  for  months  received  but 
two  or  three  per  cent  per  annum  upon  his  money,  set  up 
business  in  order  to  employ  his  own  capital  and  make  a 
better  interest  for  himself  ?  I  trow  not.  The  very  fact 
that  the  veteran  professional  conductors  of  business  have 
withdrawn  from  production,  or  have  greatly  curtailed  their 
operations,  is  a  sufficient  advertisement  to  him  that  it  is  no 
time  for  outsiders  to  push  into  the  field.  lie  knows  that, 
in  the  best  of  seasons,  a  single  venture  into  an  industry  of 
which  he  has  had  no  personal  experience,  or  even  into  one 
from  which  he  has  retired,  but  so  long  ago  as  to  have  be- 
come rusty  in  its  methods,  unfamiliar  with  its  latest  ma- 
chinery, and  strange  to  the  personnel  of  the  trade,  might 
well  cost  him  a  year's  interest  on  his  fortune ;  while  an 
attempt  to  carry  on  production,  merely  for  the  sake  of 
employing  his  capital,  in  a  time  when  the  masters  of  the 
business  shrink  from  the  prospect  of  disaster,  would,  most 
likely,  cost  him  the  bulk  of  the  capital  itself.  It  is  not  in 
such  a  time,  if  ever,  that  the  outside  capitalist  ventures 
into  the  field  of  industry.  Even  less  than  the  laborer, 
who  may  be  goaded  by  the  stings  of  personal  want,  is  he 
likely  to  step  forward  to  take  the  place  from  which  the 


EMPLOYERS  AND  EMPLOYED.  291 

entrepreneur  retires.  He,  too,  waits  for  better  times,  and 
meanwhile  gets  what  he  can  for  his  money  "  on  call." 

I  shall,  then,  in  the  four  remaining  chapters  of  this 
work  confine  myself  to  (1)  the  comparative  advantages, 
either  in  the  essence  of  the  relationship  or  in  the  acciden- 
tal constitution  of  the  classes  as  they  are  found  in  ex- 
isting economical  society,  which  the  employers  and  the 
employed  may  be  seen  to  possess ;  and  (2)  the  means  by 
which  that  class  which  we  shall  find  at  a  relative  disadvan- 
tage may  be  helped  or  hindered  in  competition  for  the 
product  of  industry. 

And,  in  the  first  place,  it  should  be  inquired,  has  either 
a  natural  advantage  over  the  other  ? 

It  is  to  be  observed  that  they  are  respectively  buyers 
and  sellers  of  the  same  thing,1  service  or  labor ;  and  each 
finds  his  own  interest  only  as  the  bargain  is  effected.  Un- 
less that  bargain  be  made,  the  employer  can  not  have  his 
profits  any  more  than  the  laborer  can  have  his  wages.  So 
far  their  interest  is  common :  that  the  laborer  shall  be 
employed.  It  is  only  as  to  the  rate  of  wages  and  the  rate 
of  profits  that  opinions  and  interests  diverge.  Hence  we 
say,  the  relation  of  the  two  parties  is  not  and  can  not  be 
one  of  antagonism,  for  the  object  and  effect  of  antagonism 
is  to  destroy  or  to  supplant. 

Since,  then,  the  employer  gets  his  profits  only  as  the 
laborer  gets  his  wages,2  and  because  the  laborer  gets  his 

1  Mr.  Frederick  Harrison,  in  a  somewhat  noted  article  in  the  Fort- 
nightly Review  (vol.  iii. ,  p.  50),  strenuously  maintains  that  "  the  la- 
borer has  not  got  a  thing  to  sell."     This  beems  to  be  a  question  of  the 
proper  use  of  two  words,  thing  and  sell.     There  are  no  facts  or  eco- 
nomical principles  involved  in  the  dispute.     If  Mr.  Harrison  were  to 
acknowledge  the  propriety  of  our  use  of  those  two  monosyllables,  he 
would  not  object  to  our  statement  otherwise.     If,  again,  we  were  to 
take  Mr.  Harrison's  view  of  the  etymology  of  these  words,  we  should 
not  claim  that  the  laborer  had  a  thing  to  sell. 

2  I  am  here  speaking  broadly.    In  an  individual  transaction  the  em- 
ployer may  fail  of  his  anticipated  profits  and  the  laborer  yet  receive 
his  wages  all  the  same  ;  and  in  other  possible  cases  an  employer  may 


293  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

wages,  it  is  difficult  to  see  that  the  employer  is  any  more 
necessary  to  the  laborer  than  the  laborer  is  to  the  employer, 
or  that  either  has  any  natural  advantage  over  the  other. 

Not  a  little,  however,  has  been  written  to  prove  that  the 
employer  has  such  an  advantage.  Mr.  Thornton,  in  his 
well-known  treatise  On  Labor,  has  sought  to  show  that 
the  sellers  of  labor  are  at  a  disadvantage. 

"  All  other  commodities,"  he  says,1  "  may  be  stored  up 
for  a  longer  or  a  shorter  time  without  loss  either  in  quan- 
tity or  quality.  But  labor  will  not  keep ;  it  can  not  be 
left  unused  for  one  moment  without  partially  wasting 
away.  Unless  it  be  sold  immediately  some  portion  of  it 
can  never  be  sold  at  all.  To-dai/s  labor  can  not  ~be  sold 
after  to-day,  for  to-morrow  it  will  have  ceased  to  exist.  A 
laborer  can  not,  for  however  short  a  time,  postpone  the 
sale  of  his  labor  without  losing  the  price  of  the  labor 
which  he  might  have  exercised  during  the  period  of  the 
postponement." 

Mr.  Thornton  certainly  did  not  intend  to  say  that  labor 
can  not  be  unused  "  for  one  moment"  without  wasting 
away,  since  the  very  first  condition  of  labor  is  that  for 
several  hours  in  each  day,  perhaps  one  half  of  the  twenty- 
four,  it  shall  be  unused.  But  taking  this  expression  as  a 
mere  slip  of  the  pen,  we  note  that  Mr.  Thornton  overlooks 
a  common  experience  in  industry  when  he  asserts  that  the 
omission  to  labor  on  any  day  carries  with  it  a  total  loss  of 
the  labor  that  might  have  been  performed.  It  surely  can 
not  be  denied  that  a  man  may  work  considerably  harder 
one  day  for  having  lain-by  the  day  before,  provided  it  was 
not  for  a  debauch,  or  in  honor  of  Saint  Monday,  but  that 
the  time  was  really  taken  for  rest.  So  that  it  is  entirely 
possible,  if,  to  save  contention,  we  take  the  case  of  a  man 
engaged  in  piece-work  or  hired  by  the  hour,  that  a  man 
may  still  have  left  him  to  sell  a  part  at  least  of  the  labor 

consent  to  pay  wages,  and  sacrifice  his  own  present  interest  in  the  pro- 
duct, for  the  sake  of  profits  to  be  made  in  better  times. 
1  On  Labor,  p.  93. 


MR.  THORNTONS   VIEW.  298 

which,  on  Mr.  Thornton's  assumption,  he  would  entirely 
and  forever  lose  by  failing  to  work,  whether  from  delibe- 
rate choice,  or  by  higgling  with  his  employer,  or  by  look- 
ing about  for  better  terms  than  those  offered  him. 

Nor  is  it  only  on  the  day  following  that  he  may  find 
himself  able  to  render  a  portion  of  the  service  which  Mr. 
Thornton  assumes  to  be  wholly  lost  by  the  failure  to  per- 
form a  day's  work  every  day.  It  is  notorious  that  a  laborer 
may  be  able,  by  lying-by  a  whole  week,  to  perform  a  dis- 
tinctly greater  amount  of  work  every  day  of  the  week  fol- 
lowing ;  not,  perhaps,  that  he  can  well  do  two  ordinary 
weeks'  work  in  one,  but  that  he  can  in  six  days  do  considera- 
bly more  than  one  ordinary  week's  work,  if  he  has  been  pre- 
pared for  the  effort  by  a  long  rest.  And  this  capability  of 
storing-up  the  power  of  labor  is  not  wholly  confined  with- 
in the  limits  of  a  secular  week.  It  is  well  known  that  in 
many  trades,  having  peculiar  natural  or  industrial  condi- 
tions, workmen  acquire  an  anaconda-like  faculty  of  alter- 
nately gorging  and  digesting1  through  periods  amounting 
to  entire  seasons  of  the  year.  I  do  not  say  that  this  is  de- 
sirable ;  I  merely  assert  it  as  a  fact.  In  none,  it  may  be  as- 
sumed, do  the  workmen  perform  as  much,  in  the  aggre- 
gate for  twelve  months,  as  if  they  had  worked  continuously, 
or  at  least  with  intervals  of  rest  and  recreation  expressly 
adapted  to  maintain  the  highest  degree  of  physical  vigor ; 
yet  in  none,  probably,  do  they  fail  to  perform  more,  and 
it  may  be  very  much  more,  than  it  would  have  been  possi- 
ble for  them  to  perform  in  equal  periods,  without  the 
preparation  of  a  long  term  of  complete  rest. 

But  it  was  not  alone  to  correct  Mr.  Thornton  in  this 
particular  that  I  quoted  him'  here.  Granting,  for  the  time, 
the  total  loss  of  labor  in  the  instances  given,  and  admitting, 
for  argument's  sake,  that  the  sellers  of  labor  are  in  a  differ- 
ent position  from  the  sellers  of  any  other  commodity,  is  not 

1  The  scholars  and  men  of  letters  who  distribute  their  labors  equally 
over  the  fifty-two  weeks  of  the  year  are,  I  apprehend,  very  few. 


294  THE   WAGES  QUESTION. 

the  buyer  of  labor  in  the  same  situation  precisely  ?  If  he 
does  not  buy  to-day's  labor  to-day,  he  surely  can  not  buy 
it  to-morrow ;  it  will  thon,  on  Mr.  Thornton's  assump- 
tion, have  ceased  to  exist.  If  the  laborer  does  not  realize 
wages  on  his  present  capacity  for  labor,  the  employer 
certainly  can  not  realize  profits  on  it.  Manual  labor  is 
the  essential  condition  of  all  production  of  wealth.  If 
manual  labor  is  withdrawn,  land  can  not  yield  rent,  money 
interest,  or  business-enterprise  profits.  Labor,  meanwhile, 
and  just  for  the  same  length  of  time,  loses  its  wages.  If 
the  stoppage  is  for  a  month,  each  party  loses  one  twelfth 
of  its  year. 

But  that  is  an  even  stranger  reason  which  Mr.  Thorn- 
ton has  discovered  for  attributing  to  the  employer,  in  his 
turn,  a  disadvantage  to  a  degree  counterbalancing  that 
which  he  attributes  to  the  laborer,  as  above.  It  is  that  the 
employer,  in  case  of  the  continued  cessation  of  industry, 
will  become  "  industrially  defunct"  (On  Labor,  p.  275) 
when  he  has  eaten  up  all  his  capital,  whereas  "  the  laborer, 
who  is  trying  conclusions  with  him,  provided  only  that  his 
health  be  not  permanently  impaired  by  the  privations  he 
is  meanwhile  enduring,  in  preserving  his  thews  and  sinews 
preserves  also  his  stock-in-trade  and  his  industrial  abili- 
ty." Mr.  Thornton  elsewhere  (p.  177)  explains  what  he 
means  by  employers  becoming  industrially  defunct  :  "  to 
them  entire  exhaustion  of  resources  would  be  absolutely 

fatal For  the  capitalist  in  losing  his  capital  loses 

his  all,  distinctive  class-existence  included  ;  he  ceases  to  be 
a  capitalist."  So,  we  suppose,  if  the  laborer  should  starve 
to  death  for  want  of  employment,  he  would  lose  his  dis- 
tinctive class-existence,  with  his  other  existence,  and  cease 
to  be  a  laborer. 

Now,  in  the  first  place,  who,  pray  (accepting  Mr.  Thorn- 
ton's definitions  of  laborer  and  capitalist),  is  to  find  sub- 
sistence for  the  laborer,  whom  Mr.  Thornton  takes  as  ha- 
bitually poor,  through  the  long  struggle  during  which  the 
capitalist  is  to  become  industrially  defunct?  Is  it  not 


MR.  THORNTON'S   VIEW.  295 

something  very  like  a  bull  to  make  the  assumption  that 
the  means  of  the  employing  capitalist  would  be  exhausted 
before  the  means  of  the  striking  laborer,  who  accordingly 
remains  sound  and  plump  in  "thew  and  sinew,"  whilo 
the  emaciated  master  sinks  out  of  his  distinctive  class- 
existence  and,  economically  speaking,  expires  of  inani- 
tion ? 

But,  secondly,  the  employer  (here  spoken  of  by  Mr. 
Thornton  as  the  capitalist)  does  not  necessarily  lose  all 
and  become  industrially  defunct  on  losing  his  capital. 
"  Goodwill "  remains,  constituted  of  business  connection 
and  business  reputation,  which  has  been  in  countless  cases 
better  than  a  fortune  to  the  able  and  deserving  man  of 
business.  It  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  an  employer 
of  character  and  standing,  who  should  sink  his  capital  in 
such  a  contest  as  Mr.  Thornton  supposes,  would  not  fail  to 
command  the  means  to  resume  and  carry  forward  his  in- 
dustrial operations.  Indeed,  it  is,  at  least  in  the  United 
States,  uncommon  for  a  really  reputable  house  to  be 
extinguished  even  by  a  failure  on  commercial  grounds. 
Witness  the  great  liquidation  of  1873-6. 

We  do  not,  then,  find  any  ground  for  attributing  to 
either  employer  or  laborer  a  natural  advantage  over  the 
other.  Certainly,  if  there  be  truth  in  the  adage  of  Cha- 
teaubriand, "  Le  salaire  n'est  que  1'esclavage  prolonge,"  it 
is  not  on  account  of  any  thing  essential  in  the  nature  of 
the  relations  of  the  employer  and  the  employed. 

We  have  already,  in  discussing  the  causes  which  dimin- 
ish industrial  mobility,  alluded  to  the  principal  causes 
which  place  the  wage-laborer  at  a  disadvantage  in  com- 
petition. Now  that  we  have  formally  arrayed  the  em- 
ploying and  the  employed  classes  over  against  each  other, 
two  of  these  causes  may  instructively  be  considered  more 
in  detail.  The  first  is  the  accidental  fact  of  the  superiority 
of  numbers  on  the  side  of  the  employed,  giving  the  em- 
ployers an  advantage  which  is  not  at  all  of  the  essence  of 
the  relationship.  In  most  countries  and  in  most  occupa- 


296  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

tions1  the  buyers  of  labor  are  few,  the  sellers  of  labor  are 
many.  Aside  from  the  effects  of  possible  combinations 
among  the  buyers  or  the  sellers,  there  is  in  this  an  element 
of  weakness  to  the  individual  seller.  For  instance,  if  we 
consider  the  case  of  a  manufacturer  employing  usually 
twenty  hands,  we  may  say  that  his  need  to  employ  those 
workmen  is  correspondent  precisely  to  their  need  of  em- 
ployment. If  the  conditions  of  his  business  would  allow 
the  profitable  employment  of  twenty  hands,  his  loss,  if  for 
any  cause  he  employs  but  nineteen,  may  be  assumed  to  be 
as  great  as  the  twenty  workmen,  taken  as  a  body,  suffer 
therefrom.  But  just  here  is  the  rub  :  the  twenty  are  not 
a  body  having  a  common  interest.  The  loss  is  not  to  be 
divided  equally  among  them.  It  is  to  fall  entire  on  a 
single  one  of  the  number ;  and  this  calamity  each  one  for 
himself  seeks  to  escape. 

In  the  apprehension,  amounting  it  may  be  to  terror,  of 
being  left  out  of  the  number  of  the  employed,  each  of  the 
twenty  is  ready  to  accept  terms  below  the  ordinary  rate. 
It  does  not  require  any  analysis  of  the  elements  of  the 
case  to  show  that,  in  such  a  temper  of  the  competitors  for 
employment,  wages  will  go  below — it  may  be  greatly 
below — the  limit  at  which  the  employer  might  be  able 
fairly  to  reimburse  himself  for  his  expenditure  and  make 
his  average  profits.  Here  we  have  a  result  of  distinct 
economical  advantage  on  the  part  of  the  employer,  arising 
not  from  the  essential  character  of  the  relation,  but  from 
the  accident  that  the  employers  are  few,  the  employed 
many. 

The  second  great  fact  in  regard  to  the  wages  class  as  we 
find  them,  is  their  habitual  poverty.  This  poverty  is  not 

1  The  most  marked  exception  is  found  in  the  matter  of  domestic 
service.  The  employers  are  here  more  numerous,  but  only  in  a  mode- 
rate degree.  The  number  of  families  employing  one  or  two  servants 
only,  vastly  exceed  the  more  highly-organized  households.  But,  upon 
our  definition,  domestic  servants  belong  to  the  salary  or  stipend  class, 
and  not  to  the  wages  class. 


THE  LABORER'S  POVERTY.  297 

at  all  involved  in  the  position  of  a  wage-laborer,  and  in 
fact  it  is  not  found  as  a  rule  in  some  communities,  nor 
without  exception  in  any  community.  The  vast  majority, 
however,  of  all  wage-laborers  have  little  or  no  accumula- 
tions, many  being  even  without  the  means  of  subsisting 
themselves  a  month,  or  a  week,  without  work.  They  are, 
therefore,  unable  to  stand  out  against  their  employers  and 
make  terms  for  their  services,  or  to  seek  a  better  market 
for  their  labor  in  another  town  or  city,  but  must  accept 
the  first  offer  of  employment,  however  meagre  the  com- 
pensation. Even  though  the  matter  in  dispute  between 
them  and  their  employers  may  be  sufficient  to  justify  a 
protracted  contest,  they  lack  the  primary  physical  means 
of  sustaining  that  contest.  The  wage-laborer  is  thus  like 
a  poor  litigant  who  must  lose  a  valuable  claim  because  he 
has  not  the  money  to  pay  the  cost  of  a  suit ;  and  after  a 
struggle,  short  at  the  utmost,  he  sees  himself  on  the  verge 
of  suffering  or  even  of  starvation  ;  and,  if  not  for  his  own 
sake,  at  least  for  that  of  his  wife  and  children,  is  fain  to 
accept  the  terms  that  are  offered  him. 

The  employer,  on  the  other  hand,  has  only  to  calculate 
whether  the  matter  in  dispute  between  him  and  his  hands 
is  really  worth  a  contest ;  and  if  he  find  it  so,  he  can,  BO 
far  as  his  own  mere  physical  maintenance  is  concerned, 
protract  the  contest  indefinitely.  By  "  indefinitely"  I 
mean  that  the  term  through  which  the  master  can  with- 
hold employment  is  altogether  out  of  proportion  to  the 
term  during  which  the  laborer,  as  he  is  found  in  actual 
life  to  be  furnished  with  the  means  of  subsistence,  can 
manage  to  live  without  employment. 

But  the  employer  may  not  deem  the  matter  in  dispute 
worth  a  contest,  and  hence  it  is  of  great  importance  to  the 
laborer  that  he  should  have  the  ability,  at  least  for  a  time, 
to  dispute  the  employer's  terms,  and  make  him  fairly  face 
the  prospect  of  a  struggle  before  deciding  against  his  de- 
mands. If,  then,  the  employer  sees  that  the  profits  which 
the  lower  wages  would  enable  him,  in  a  given  period,  to 


298  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

make  will  be  eaten  up  in  a  period  of  inactivity,  it  may 
fairly  be  assumed  that,  if  he  can,  he  will  concede  what  is 
asked.  This,  of  course,  implies  that  the  question  of  pe- 
cuniary interest  only  is  considered,  and  that  bad  temper 
and  creature  pugnacity1  do  not  enter  as  elements  in  the 
situation. 

In  connection  with  this  assumed  calculation  by  the  em- 
ployer as  to  the  expediency  of  standing  out  against  a  de- 
mand for  wages  which  he  may  be  able,  though  reluctant, 
to  concede,  we  have  to  take  into  account  two  elements 
which  are  additional  to  the  simple  one  of  the  amount  of 
wages  to  be  paid. 

The  first  is  the  employer's  interest  in  the  continuity  of 
production. 

The  interest  which  the  employer  has  in  the  continuity  of 
production,  over  and  above  the  mere  profits  which  he  might 
expect  to  realize  in  a  given  period  during  which  a  sus- 
pension of  industry  might  be  proposed  or  threatened, 

1  This  exception  is  important.  We  have  a  strange  dictum,  from. 
Professor  Cairnes  in  his  work,  Some  Leading  Principles  of  Political 
Economy  (p.  268),  as  follows  :  "  The  temporary  success  of  a  strike 
does  not  necessarily  prove  its  wisdom  ;  but  the  failure  of  a  strike,  im- 
mediate or  ultimate,  is  decisive  evidence  that  it  ought  never  to  have 
been  undertaken."  It  would  be  possible  to  place  a  construction  on 
this  language  which  should  remove  the  remark  from  the  criticism 
which  the  plain  sense  of  the  words  invites.  Surely  it  is  conceivable 
tnat  a  body  of  workmen  should  make  a  demand  on  their  employer 
which  the  state  of  the  market  would  fairly  allow  him  to  concede,  and 
which,  in  another  mood,  he  might  cheerfully  concede.  The  demand, 
however,  being  made  or  met,  it  matters  not  which,  in  bad  temper,  ill- 
blood  is  aroused  and  a  conflict  precipitated.  In  such  a  contest  the 
workmen  might  be  beaten  by  the  longer  purse  of  a  wilful,  resolute  em- 
ployer, and  finally  obliged  to  yield,  without  proving  their  demands  un- 
reasonable, any  more  than  a  poor  patentee  being  obliged  to  abandon 
an  invention  to  a  powerful  combination  of  manufacturers,  in  these  days 
of  tardy  and  costly  justice,  would  prove  that  he  never  had  any  rights 
in  the  case.  Of  course,  if  it  be  held  that  failure  in  human  affairs  of 
itself  proves  folly,  Professor  Cairnes's  remark  is  justified.  In  that  case 
it  would  be  correct  to  say  of  a  ship  which  should  sail  by  the  usual 
route  from  Liverpool  to  New- York  and  be  sunk  by  an  iceberg  hallway 
across,  that  she  ought  never  to  have  undertaken  the  voyage. 


CONTINUITY  OF  PRODUCTION.  299 

arises  mainly  out  of  that  business  connection  and  that 
business  reputation  which  are  summed  up  in  the  phrase 
"  goodwill."  Altogether  besides  the  loss  of  immediate 
profits,  an  employer  of  labor  has  to  contemplate  a  certain 
loss  of  custom  as  involved  in  any  protracted  stoppage  of 
his  works. 

The  world  of  politics  does  not  sooner  forget  a  former 
leader  in  retirement  than  the  world  of  business  forgets 
one  who  withdraws  from  the  competitions  of  trade.  Even 
the  strongest  houses,  however  completely  they  may  seem 
to  have  the  control  of  the  market  in  their  line,  do  not 
like  to  have  their  customers  arid  correspondents  learn  to 
go  elsewhere,  through  any  failure  of  theirs  to  meet  every 
demand  upon  them.  Hence  they  not  infrequently  con- 
tinue producing  through  considerable  periods  of  depres- 
sion, making  a  sacrifice  of  their  accustomed  profits,  and 
sometimes  even  for  shorter  periods  producing  at  an  actual 
loss,  though  on  a  scale  as  much  diminished  as  is  consistent 
with  keeping  their  hold  on  their  connection.1 

1  Somewhat  aside  from  this  consideration,  yet  here  mentioned  in 
order  to  avoid  multiplying  distinctions,  is  the  fact  that,  in  some  in- 
dustries, besides  the  sacrifice  of  the  employer's  profits  during  a  stop- 
page, there  are  considerable  expenses  (additional  to  loss  of  rent  and 
interest)  to  be  incurred  in  maintaining  the  service  in  condition  for  re- 
sumption. Such  expenses  are  those  of  keeping  mines  free  from  water, 
and  keeping  furnaces  in  blast.  If  these  things  are  to  be  done,  it  is  at 
a  great  cost  ;  if  omitted  to  be  done,  and  the  mines  are  allowed  to  fill 
up  and  the  fires  to  go  out,  a  heavy  tax  is  imposed  upon  the  resumption 
of  production.  On  the  other  hand,  it  deserves  to  be  mentioned  that  the 
suspension  of  production  may  at  times  be  a  relief  to  the  employer. 
This  may  happen  when  the  reduction  of  profits,  through  the  depression 
of  trade,  coincides  with  an  occasion  for  repairing  or  renewing  machinery 
or  enlarging  works,  or  converting  buildings  to  different  uses.  Thus 
we  find  it  stated  concerning  the  great  Glasgow  strike  of  1874  :  "  Ad- 
vantage is  being  taken  of  the  present  opportunity  to  execute  any  im- 
portant repairs  and  reconstructions  that  can  be  undertaken  ;  so  that 
even  though  the  strike  were  at  an  end  to-morrow,  some  days  would 
elapse  before  the  work  of  production  could  possibly  be  in  full  swing 
again."— Iron  and  Coal  Trades  Review. 


300  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

But,  secondly,  the  employer  has  an  interest  in  the  con- 
tinuity of  employment. 

This  arises  (a)  out  of  the  knowledge  acquired,  through 
previous  service,  of  the  laborer's  disposition  and  charac- 
ter, especially  as  to  honesty,  truthfulness,  and  sobriety ; 
(Z>)  out  of  that  mutual  adaptation,  in  way  and  habit,  ex- 
tending even  to  the  tone  of  the  voice  and  the  carriage  of 
the  body,  which  results  between  man  and  master,  and  be- 
tween every  man  and  his  mates,  from  long  acquaintance ; 
(c)  out  of  that  familiarity  which  the  workman  acquires  with 
the  peculiarities  of  his  employer's  business,  which  is  wholly 
additional  to  a  mastery  of  the  technicalities  of  the  occu- 
pation, and  which  includes  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the 
localities  in  which  the  industry  is  prosecuted,  of  the  fix- 
tures and  machinery  in  use,  of  the  customers,  it  may  be, 
of  the  establishment;  and  lastly,  of  the  minor  yet  im- 
portant characteristics  which  often  distinguish  the  product 
of  one  establishment  from  that  of  any  other,  and  thus  give 
it  a  quality  which,  though  it  perhaps  adds  nothing  to  its 
utility  in  the  hands  of  the  consumer,  yet  serves  the  pur- 
poses of  the  producer  for  the  advertisement  and  easy 
recognition  of  his  wares1;  and  (d)  out  of  the  loss  of  time 
or  of  energy  which  every  change,  simply  as  change,  in- 
volves, in  greater  or  less  degree. 

The  interest  which,  on  the  above  several  accounts,  em- 
ployers have  in  preserving  the  continuity  of  employ- 
ment, varies  greatly.  No  employer,  it  may  be  assumed, 
but  is  interested  to  a  degree  in  knowing  how  far  he  may 
look  to  his  individual  workmen  for  the  simple  virtues  of 
honesty,  truthfulness,  and  sobriety ;  but  in  many  large  de- 
partments of  industry  the  advantages  which  we  have 
indicated  as  implied  in  the  retention  of  workmen  would 

1  Many  manufacturers  and  dealers  will  recognize  this  element  as  of 
no  small  importance.  They  identify  the  products  of  different  establish- 
ments by  their  style  and  finish,  as  easily  and  certainly  as  the  editor  of  a 
newspaper  comes  to  identify  the  smallest  clipping  from  a  contemporary 
by  its  paper,  type,  and  "  make-up." 


CONTINUITY  OF  EMPLOYMENT.  301 

seem  shadowy  and  unsubstantial.  !N"ew  men  taken  on  in 
an  emergency  do  as  much  work,  and  perhaps  do  it  as 
well,  as  the  old.  The  conditions  of  the  business,  the  na- 
ture of  the  products,  are  not  such  as  to  make  it  wortli 
while  to  retain  a  workman  at  any  great  sacrifice,  so  long 
r.s  another  of  the  same  industrial  grade  can  be  had. 

In  other  branches  of  industry,  however,  the  advantages 
which  have  been  enumerated  are  not  only  substantial  but  of 
great  importance.  At  times,  indeed,  they  are  recognized 
in  the  grading  of  wages  somewhat  according  to  the  length 
of  service;  and  probably  few  employers  of  labor  in  these 
branches  would  deny  that  the  reason  of  the  case  would 
justify  that  system  being  carried  much  further  than  it  is. 
Yet,  while  the  distinct  acknowledgment  of  the  advantages 
of  continuity  of  employment,  by  money  payments  propor- 
tioned to  length  of  service,  is  still  highly  exceptional,  it 
may  be  said  that  these  advantages  are  almost  as  a  rule  re- 
cognized by  employers  in  a  preference  given  to  their  older 
employees  in  the  event  of  a  reduction  of  force ;  and  since, 
as  has  been  shown  heretofore,  regularity  of  employment 
is  to  be  taken  into  account  in  reducing  nominal  to  real 
wages,  we  may  fairly  say  that  these  advantages  are  actu- 
ally paid  for  in  no  inconsiderable  amount. 

Yet,  though  workmen  are  thus  compensated  through 
money  payments,  or,  more  frequently,  by  preference  given 
them  in  reductions  of  force,  for  the  power  they  have  ac- 
quired, through  continuance  in  employment,  of  rendering 
a  higher  quality  of  service ;  in  general,  at  least,  there  is 
strong  reason  to  believe  that  they  are  not  paid  as  much  on 
this  account  as  the  considerations  adduced  would  warrant. 
The  force  of  custom,  the  jealousy  of  fellow-employees, 
the  stress  of  trades-union  regulations,1  and,  not  least,  the 
failure  of  the  employer  to  recognize  the  full  merit  of  the 


1  Many  trades  unions  or  societies  disavow  the  purpose  to  prevent 
workmen  of  exceptional  merit  from  receiving  wages  above  the 
average. 


302  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

workman  and  the  degree  in  which  it  contributes  to  his 
own  success  ;  these  latter,  in  connection  with  the  master's 
knowledge  that,  though  the  workman  may  take  from  him 
these  advantages,  he  can  not  carry  them  to  any  one  else, 
are  in  a  great  majority  of  cases  sufficient  to  keep  the  re- 
muneration of  the  higher  grades  of  labor  from  rising  pro- 
portionally to  their  real  worth.  Yet  we  can  not  doubt 
that  the  employer's  conscious  interest  in  the  continuity  of 
employment  does  enter,1  in  almost  every  issue  joined  be- 
tween him  and  his  workmen,  as  an  element  in  deduction 
from  the  computed  difference  between  the  wages  paid 
and  the  wages  demanded.  Few  masters  in  any  branch  of 
industry  could  contemplate  the  sudden  change  of  their  en- 
tire laboring  force  as  less  than  a  business  calamity,  while 
in  many  branches  of  production  it  would  involve  great 
loss  if  not  ruin.  Partial  changes  may  indeed  be  effected 
without  actual  sacrifice  of  capital,  but  not  without  a 
marked  increase  of  labor  and  of  anxiety  on  the  part  of 
employers. 

1  A  very  striking  demonstration  of  the  importance  of  this  considera- 
tion in  many  branches  of  industry  is  to  be  seen  by  the  most  casual  ob- 
server in  the  phenomenon  of  a  part  of  the  laborers  in  a  trade  wholly 
unemployed.  Why  are  not  all  employed  at  lower  prices  ?  This  would 
be  the  effect  of  simple  competition.  The  answer  is  found  partly  in  the 
force  of  personal  consideration  and  respect  arising  out  of  acquaintance 
and  association ;  but  mainly  in  the  employer's  interest  in  the  continuity 
of  employment.  He  could  not  afford  for  a  short  time  to  take  on  new 
hands  even  at  lower  rates. 


CHAPTER  XYII. 

WHAT   MAY    PLACE   THE    WAGES    CLASS   AT  A  DISADVANTAGE  ? 

WE  have  seen  (Chapter  X.)  that  the  only  security  which 
the  wages  class  can  have  that  they  shall  receive  the  largest 
possible  remuneration  which  is  compatible  with  the  exist- 
ing conditions  of  industry,  is  found  in  their  own  perfect 
mobility.  Without  this,  they  are  clearly  subject  to  re- 
ductions of  wages  under  pressure,  to  be  succeeded  only 
too  surely  by  industrial  degradation  (Chapter  IV.).  And 
it  is  further  evident  that  it  matters  not,  in  the  result, 
whether  the  total  or  partial  immobility  of  labor  be  pro- 
duced by  physical  causes,  by  the  force  of  positive  law,  or 
by  fear,  ignorance,  or  superstition.  Any  thing  which  de- 
ceives the  sense  of  the  wage-laborer  or  confuses  his  appre- 
hension of  his  own  interest  may  be  just  as  mischievous, 
in  a  given  case,  as  bodily  constraint. 

Following  out  this  line  of  thought,  we  find  that  the 
wage-laborer  may  be  put  at  disadvantage, 

I.  By  laws  which  act  in  restraint  of  movement  or  con- 
tract. Such  laws  may  not  be  prohibitory,  but  merely 
regulative  in  their  intention,  and  yet  retard  more  or  less 
seriously  the  passage  from  occupation  to  occupation,  or 
from  place  to  place.  Even  the  mere  necessity  of  registra- 
tion imposed  must  have  an  effect,  however  slight,  in  the 
nature  of  obstruction ;  and  unless  it  can  be  shown1  that,  by 
increasing  the  intelligence  and  confidence  with  which 

1  See  p.  169. 


304  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

changes  of  location  or  of  occupation  may  be  effected,  it 
more  than  compensates  for  the  degree  of  hindrance  and 
irritation  which  the  merest  act  of  registration  involves,  it 
must  be  condemned  as  prejudicial  to  the  wages  class, 
whose  supreme  interest  is  the  easy,  ready  flow  of  labor  to 
its  market. 

But  it  is  not  of  such  incidental  or  perhaps  wholly  un- 
designed mischief  that  labor  has  had  chiefly  to  complain  in 
the  past  Those  countries  are  very  young  whose  history 
does  not  afford  repeated  instances  of  direct  and  purposed 
obstruction  to  industrial  movement  and  contract,  in  the 
interest  of  the  employing  class,  which  has  generally  been 
largely  identical  with  the  law-making  class.  The  vicious 
maxims  of  English  legislation  in  this  respect  extended 
even  to  the  American  colonies,  free  as  they  kept  them- 
selves otherwise  from  the  industrial  errors  of  the  mother 
country,  and  laws  in  regulation  of  service  and  of  wages 
remained  long  on  the  statute-books  of  these  enlightened 
communities. 

A  brief  recital  of  the  English  legislation  in  restraint  of 
the  natural  rights  of  labor  will  not  prove  uninstructive. 

After  the  frightful  plague,  called  the  Black  Death, 
which  swept  over  England  in  1348-49,  carrying  away 
"  perhaps  from  one  third  to  one  half  of  the  population,"1 
wages  rose,  from  the  temporary  scarcity  of  labor,  to  rates 
previously  unknown  ;  nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  labor- 
ers, thus  by  a  great  accident  made  for  the  time  masters 
of  the  situation,  assumed  a  tone  which  employers  relished 
quite  as  little  as  they  liked  their  higher  terms.  To  meet 
this  exigency,2  Edward  III.  issued  a  proclamation  for- 
bidding the  payment  of  more  than  customary  wages,3 

1  Rogers,  Hist,  of  Agr.  and  Prices. 

a  "  Because  a  great  part  of  the  people,  and  especially  of  workmen 
and  servants,  late  died  of  the  pestilence,  many,  seeing  the  necessity  of 
masters  and  great  scarcity  of  servants,  will  not  serve  unless  they  receive 
excessive  wages,"  etc.,  etc. 

'Namely,  those  wages  which  had  been  paid  in  the  20th  year  of  King 


LAWS  FIXING    WAQE8.  805 

and  requiring  workmen  to  serve  in  their  accustomed 
place.  About  a  year  later,  the  disputes  which  arose  in 
determining  what  wages  had  been  customary  before  the 
plague  led  to  the  enactment  of  a  law  (25  Edward  III.) 
fixing  for  the  whole  kingdom  the  precise  amount  to  be 
paid  in  wages  in  each  of  the  principal  occupations.  Ser- 
vants were  to  be  "sworn  two  times  in  the  year  before 
lords,  stewards,  bailiffs,  and  constables  of  every  town  to 
hold  and  do  these  ordinances."  .  .  .  "And  those 
which  refuse  to  make  such  oath,  or  to  perform  that  that 
they  be  sworn  to  or  have  taken  upon  them,  shall  be  put  in 
the  stocks  by  the  said  lords,  stewards,  bailiffs,  and  con- 
stables of  the  towns  by  three  days  or  more,  or  sent  to  the 
next  gaol,  there  to  remain  till  they  will  justify  them- 
selves." The  statute  prescribed  the  "  liveries  and  wages" 
of  "  carters,  ploughmen,  drivers  of  the  plough,  shepherds, 
swineherds,  deies,  and  all  other  servants"  in  husbandry;  of 
"carpenters,  masons  and  tilers,  and  other  workmen  of 
houses,"  including  their  "  knaves,"  and  of  "  plaisterers  and 
other  workers  of  mudwalls  and  their  knaves."1 

But  by  the  13th  year  of  Richard  II.  Parliament  had  ac- 


Edward's  reign,  or  the  average  of  "  five  or  six  other  common  years  next 
before." 

1 1  select  the  following  examples  from  the  laws  of  the  Massachusetts 
Colony  : 

1630,  23d  August. — "  It  was  ordered  that  carpenters,  joiners,  brick- 
layers, sawyers,  and  thatchers  shall  not  take  above  2«.  a  day  ;  nor  any 
man  shall  give  more,  under  pain  of  10s.  to  taker  and  giver." 

28th  September. — "  It  is  ordered  that  no  master  carpenter,  mason, 
joiner,  or  bricklayer  shall  take  above  IQd.  a  day  for  their  work,  if  they 
have  meat  and  drink,  and  the  second  sort  not  above  12d.  a  day,  under 
pain  of  10s.  both  to  giver  and  receiver." 

Two  other  acts  had  been  passed  of  a  similar  nature,  when,  on  the  22d 
March,  1631,  the  General  Court,  "  ordered  (that  whereas  the  wages  of 
carpenters,  joiners,  and  other  artificers  and  workmen  were  by  order  of 
court  restrained  to  particular  sums)  shall  now  be  left  free,  and  at 
liberty  as  men  shall  reasonably  agree."  In  September,  however,  the 
Court  suffered  a  relapse,  and  for  four  years  longer  continued  to  fix  spe- 
cifically the  wages  of  labor. 


306  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

cumulated  experience  enough  of  the  evils  of  settling  a 
common  rate  for  all  England  to  provide  that  "  forasmuch 
as  a  man  can  not  put  the  price  of  corn  and  other  victuals 
in  certain,"1  justices  of  the  peace  should  in  every  county 
make  occasional  proclamation,  "  by  their  discretion,  accord- 
ing to  the  dearth  of  victuals,  how  much  every  mason,  car- 
penter, tiler,  and  other  craftsman,  workman,  and  other 
laborers  by  the  day,  as  well  in  harvest  as  in  other  times  of 
the  year,  after  their  degree,  shall  take,  with  meat  and 
drink  or  without  meat  and  drink."  By  the  important  act 
of  5  Elizabeth  this  power  of  justices  to  fix  wages  was 
re-enacted,  and,  though  long  disused,  it  was  not  until  the 
53  George  III.  that  the  authority  was  formally  with- 
drawn. 

But  it  was  not  the  rate  of  wages  alone  which  received 
the  attention  of  the  early  parliaments.  The  statute  of  37  Ed- 
ward III.  required  that  "  artificers,  handicraft  people,  hold 
them  every  one  to  one  mystery,  which  he  will  choose  be- 
twixt this  and  the  (said)  feast  of  Candlemas ;  and  two  of 
every  craft  shall  be  chosen  to  survey  that  none  use  other 
craft  than  the  same  which  he  hath  chosen."  By  statute 
of  12  Richard  II.  it  was  ordained  that  "  he  or  she  which 
use  to  labor  at  the  plough  and  cart,  or  other  labor  or  service 
of  husbandry,  till  they  be  of  the  age  of  twelve  years  ;  that 
from  thenceforth  they  shall  abide  at  the  same  labor,  with- 
out being  put  to  any  mystery  or  handicraft."  But  the 
statute  of  the  largest  effect  in  constraining  the  courses  of 
labor  was  that  of  the  5th  Elizabeth  known  as  the  Statute  of 

1  The  Massachusetts  General  Court  reached  the  same  conclusion  some 
hundreds  of  years  later,  and  having  repealed,  September  3d,  1635,  the 
law  "that  restrained  workmen's  wages  to  a  certainty,"  enacted  in  1636 
"  that  the  freemen  of  every  town  shall  from  time  to  time,  as  occasion 
shall  require,  agree  an-ong  themselves  about  the  prices  and  rates  of  all 
workmen,  laborers,  and  servants'  wajjes  ;  and  every  other  person  in- 
habiting in  any  town,  whether  workman,  laborer,  or  servant,  shall  be 
bound  to  the  same  rates  which  the  said  freemen  or  the  greater  part 
shall  bind  themselves  unto/' 


LEGAL  REGULATION  OF  LABOR.  307 

Apprentices,  by  which  the  access  of  unskilled  labor  to  the 
trades  and  professions  was  restricted  within  the  narrowest 
bounds.  A  single  section  will  suffice.  No  merchant, 
mercer,  draper,  goldsmith,  ironmonger,  embroiderer,  or 
clothier  may  take  an  apprentice,  "  except  such  servant  or 
apprentice  be  his  son,  or  else  that  the  father  or  mother  of 
such  apprentice  or  servant  shall  have,  at  the  time  of  taking 
of  such  apprentice  or  servant,  lands,  tenements,  or  other 
hereditaments  of  the  clear  yearly  value  of  forty  shillings 
of  one  estate  of  inheritance  or  freehold  at  the  least." 

So  much  for  restraints  on  movement  from  one  occupa- 
tion to  another.  Movement  from  place  to  place  was  re- 
stricted with  equal  jealousy.  By  statute  of  25  Edward 
III.  it  was  ordained  that,  with  exception  of  certain  coun- 
ties, no  laborer  in  agriculture  should  "go  out  of  the 
town  where  he  dwelleth  in  the  winter  to  serve  the  sum- 
mer, if  he  may  serve  in  the  same  town,  taking  as  before 
is  said."  By  the  statute  of  12  Richard  II.  it  was  provided 
that  "  no  servant  or  laborer,  be  he  man  or  woman,  shall 
depart  at  the  end  of  his  term  out  of  the  hundred,  rape,  or 
wapentake  where  he  is  dwelling,  to  serve  or  dwell  else- 
where, or  by  color  to  go  from  thence  in  pilgrimage,  unless 
he  bring  a  letter-patent  containing  the  cause  of  his  going, 
and  the  time  of  his  return,  if  he  ought  to  return,  under 
the  king's  seal,"  etc.  Although  all  life  had  long  passed 
out  of  these  statutes,  it  was  not  until  1824:  that  the  laws 
prohibiting  the  emigration  of  artisans  from  the  kingdom 
were  repealed,  as  vain  and  uselessly  irritating. 

Such  extracts  as  have  been  presented  will  perhaps  serve 
sufficiently  to  convey  an  impression  of  the  minuteness  and 
rigidity  of  the  numerous  acts  which  sought  to  regulate  the 
industry  of  England.  It  is  not  necessary  to  show  that  such 
laws  were  always  fully  enforced,1  to  establish  the  certainty 

1  Many  of  these  acts  were  doubtless  passed  in  the  spirit  of  2  and  3 
Edward  VI.  (c.  9)  :  "  Therefore,  as  the  malice  of  man  increaseth  to  de- 
fraud the  intent  of  good  laws,  so  laws  must  rise  against  such  guile 
vrith  the  more  severity,  day  by  day,  for  the  due  repress  of  the  same." 


308  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

that  they  wrought  grievous  evil  to  the  working  classes. 
If  they  had  effect  only  in  part,  if  they  were  only  enforced 
here  and  there  and  now  and  then,  or  even  if  they  were 
always  to  be  evaded,  but  by  resort  to  concealment,  strata- 
gem, or  indirection,  then  they  must  have  seriously  affected 
the  mobility  of  labor. 

But  it  is  doubtful  if  all  the  barbarous  enactments  we 
have  cited  are  together  responsible  for  more  of  the  present 
pauperism  and  destitution  of  England  than  is  the  law  of 
parochial  settlement.  This  act  originated  in  the  reign  of 
Charles  II.,  and  while  other  restrictions  upon  the  move- 
ment of  population  were  gradually  giving  way  before  the 
expansion  of  industrial  enterprise  and  the  liberalizing  ten- 
dencies of  modern  thought,  the  mischievous  provisions  of 
the  Law  of  Settlement  were  given  a  wider  scope  and  an 
increased  severity  from  reign  to  reign.  It  is  only  within 
the  last  twelve  years  that  the  cords  that  crossed  the  politi- 
cal body  in  all  directions,  cutting  off  the  circulation  until 
every  portion  of  the  surface  broke  out  in  putrefying  sores, 
have  been  loosened.  The  image  may  seem  extravagant ; 
but  no  language  can  exaggerate  the  effect  of  such  restraints 
on  population.  Migration  within  the  kingdom  was  prac- 
tically prohibited.  If  the  laborer  in  search  of  employ- 
ment ventured  across  the  boundaries  of  his  parish  (and 
there  are  15,535  parishes  in  England  and  Wales),  he  was 
liable  to  be  apprehended  and  returned  to  the  place  of  his 
settlement ;  while  parish  officers  were  perpetually  incited 
by  the  fears  of  the  ratepayers  to  zeal  in  hunting  down  and 
running  out  all  possible  claimants  of  public  charity  on 
whom,  if  unmolested,  residence  would  confer  a  right  to 
support.  "  When  an  employer  wished  to  engage  a  servant 
from  a  foreign  parish,  he  was  not  permitted  to  do  so  un- 
less he  entered  into  a  recognizance,  often  to  a  considerable 
amount,  to  the  effect  that  the  incomer  should  not  obtain  the 
settlement,  else  the  bond  to  be  good  against  the  employer. 
Parochial  registers  are  full  of  such  acknowledgments."1 

1  Eogers,  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  122. 


LEGAL  REGULATION  OF  LABOR.  309 

The  peasant  and  the  artisan,  thus  shut  up  within  the 
place  of  their  birth,  were  compelled  to  meet  the  fate  which 
awaited  the  industry  of  that  locality.  All  local  calamities 
fell  with  unbroken  force  upon  a  population  that  had  no 
escape.  The  calamity  might  be  temporary,  but  the  effects 
upon  character  and  life  were  not.  Industry  might  look 
up  again,  but  the  peasant,  broken  in  his  self-respect,  bru- 
talized, pauperized,  could  never  afterwards  be  the  same 
man.  Employment  might  revive;  but  no  art  of  man, 
no  power  of  government  could  reconstitute  the  shattered 
manhood. 

It  is  probably  safe  to  say  that  no  Continental  country 
has,  at  least  within  late  years,  maintained  any  law  so  in- 
jurious in  its  practical  effects  in  producing  a  helpless  im- 
mobility of  labor,  as  the  English  law  of  settlement,  the 
original  object  of  which  was  to  keep,  not  laborers,  but 
paupers,  in  their  place.  But  of  laws  directly  seeking,  in 
the  interests  of  employers,  to  control  the  movements  of 
labor,  whether  from  place  to  place  or  from  occupation  to 
occupation,  there  is  in  the  history  of  European  legislation 
limit  neither  to  number  nor  to  variety.  In  France,1  in 
spite  of  some  contradictory  features,  it  may  be  said  that 
freedom  of  labor  was  achieved  by  the  Revolution.  In 
Germany,  and  among  the  Scandinavian2  peoples,  the  system 
of  restriction  was  strongly  intrenched,  and  still  survives 
with  no  little  force,  noth withstanding  the  tremendous 
breaches  made  in  it  by  the  liberalizing  tendencies  of  the 
last  twelve  or  fifteen  years.  In  Denmark,  perhaps,  of  all 
these  countries,  free  trade  in  labor  is  most  nearly  achieved.* 
In  Austria  laws  instituting  the  "  Genossenschaften,"  or 

1  M.  Ducarre's  Report  of  1875.  to  which  I  Lave  several  times  referred, 
presents  a  good  view  of  the  course  of  measures  by  which  labor  in 
France  has  been  emancipated  (pp.  22-64). 

2  "  The  corporation  system  exists  with  more  vigor  in  Denmark,  Nor- 
way, and  Sweden,"  wrote  Mr.  Laing  in  1851,  "  than  in  any  other  coun- 
try."— Denmark  and  the  Duchies,  p.  301. 

8  Since  1862.  See  Report  of  Mr.  Strachey  on  the  Condition  of  the 
Industrial  Classes,  1870,  p.  505. 


310  THE  WAGES  QUESTION". 

guilds,  are  so  far  modified  that  these  are  no  longer  close 
corporations.  They  are  still,  however,  compulsory  associa- 
tions, to  which  every  Austrian  workman  is  under  legal 
obligation  to  belong.1 

II.  The  wage-laborer  may  be  put  at  disadvantage  by 
a  fictitious  currency.  The  laborer  suffers,  with  other 
classes  of  the  community,  from  the  disturbances  of  in- 
dustry which  are  always  occasioned  by  an  inflated  and 
fluctuating  circulation ;  but  the  injury  to  which  I  refer 
under  the  present  title  is  due  to  the  difficulty  which  the 
laborer  experiences  in  adjusting  his  demand  upon  his 
employer  to  the  rapid  and  violent  changes  in  the  currency 
cost  of  living,  and  to  the  illusions  created  by  paper 
wealth,  by  which  the  laborer's  expenditure  is  inevitably 
more  or  less  perverted  and  distorted. 

The  most  difficult  mental  operation  which  ordinary  men 
are  called  upon  to  perform  is  that  of  discount.  Even  the 
book-educated  and  men  of  affairs  find  it  laborious  and 
painful.  Mr.  Laing,  the  well-known  traveller,  has  left  a 
curious  bit  of  testimony  on  this  point  in  a  remark  made 
in  his  Tour  in  Sweden,  to  the  effect  that  he  always  caught 
himself  thinking  of  a  mile  in  that  country  as  he  would  of 
a  mile  in  England,  although  the  Swedish  mile  is  seven 
times  as  long.  If  such  is  the  experience  of  a  cultivated 
mind  in  so  simple  and  familiar  a  matter,  what  can  be  ex- 
pected of  men  of  limited  views  and  little  information, 
subject  unduly  to  the  first  impression  of  things  and  un- 
trained to  arithmetical  computations,  when  called  to  render 
their  wages  into  terms  corresponding  to  the  rapidly  chang- 
ing prices  of  the  necessaries  of  life  ?  It  is  a  work  which 
would  task  the  powers  of  a  philosopher ;  it  is  extremely 
improbable  that  a  workingman  will  succeed  in  accomplish- 
ing it.  The  laborer's  interest  will  not  come  to  him :  he 
must  go  to  it;  and  to  do  so  he  must  be  able  to  identify 
and  locate  it  with  precision  and  assurance.  In  the  absence, 


1  Report  of  Mr.  Lytton,  1870,  p.  522. 


WAGES  AND   THE  CURRENCY.  811 

therefore,  of  clear  and  definite  ideas  on  the  relation  of 
wages  and  prices,  the  laborer  must  under  such  a  currency 
follow  blindly  around  after  prices,  guided  only  by  a  gen- 
eral sense  of  the  inadequacy  of  his  wages  in  making  his 
demands  upon  his  employer.  Acting  without  intelligence 
in  the  premises,  it  is  a  matter  of  course  that  he  sacrifices 
in  some  degree  his  own  interests.  He  either  demands  too 
much,  and  failing  perhaps  in  a  persistent  demand  injures 
alike  himself  and  his  employer;  or,  asking  too  little,  he 
rests  content  with  getting  that. 

It  was  doubtless  with  reference  to  this  inability  of  the 
laboring  class  to  meet  such  sudden  and  violent  changes  of 
conditions  as  are  caused  by  a  fictitious  currency  that  Mr. 
Mill  assigned  to  "  custom"  in  economics  the  same  benefi- 
cent function  which  it  has  performed  in  the  sphere  of  poli- 
tics as  "  the  most  powerful  protector  of  the  weak  against 
the  strong."  Habit,  usage,  constitutes  a  barrier  which  in 
a  degree  preserves  the  economically  weak  from  the  hust- 
lings  and  jostlings  of  the  marketplace,  and  gives  them 
room  to  stand.1  A  fictitious  currency  breaks  down  this 
barrier  and  involves  all  classes  of  the  community  in  a  fu- 
rious and  incessant  struggle  for  existence  in  which  the 
weakest  are  certain  to  be  trampled  down. 

But  it  is  not  alone  in  competition  with  the  employer 
that  the  laborer  is  placed  at  disadvantage  by  a  fictitious 
currency.  If  it  is  difficult  for  the  laborer  to  secure  the 

1  I  am  here  speaking  of  wage-laborers  as  they  are  and  not  as  they 
might  be.  There  could  be  a  better  state  of  things  still  than  that  in 
which  "custom"  protects  the  poor — that  is,  a  condition  in  which  the 
laboring  class  should  be  so  intelligent,  and  hence  so  strong,  that  they 
could  not  afford  and  would  not  endure  to  take  a  defensive  position, 
but  should  welcome  the  utmost  that  competition  could  do.  But  so 
long  as  the  working  classes  remain,  as  in  most  countries,  ignorant  and 
inert,  it  is  possible  that  causes  reducing  the  severity  of  competition 
may  be  properly  correspondent  to  their  weaknesses,  and  thus  beneficial. 
However  that  may  be,  it  stands  by  itself,  that  the  working  classes,  be- 
ing inadequately  prepared  to  follow  around  after  changes  of  price,  must 
be  injured  by  whatever  makes  those  changes  more  frequent  and 
violent. 


312  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

adjustment  of  his  wages  to  the  varying  cost  of  living, 
much  more  difficult  is  it  for  him  to  hold  his  own  in  the 
contest  with  the  retail  dealer  from  whom  he  obtains  the 
necessaries  of  life.  A  laborer's  earnings  are  expended  in 
hundreds  of  small  purchases.  If  his  earnings  come  to  him 
in  depreciated  paper,  and  are  to  be  expended  in  commo- 
dities at  inflated  prices,  he  is,  if  he  would  judge  either  of 
the  proportion  between  his  present  and  past  expenditures 
as  a  whole,  or  between  the  price  of  any  one  article  and 
that  which  he  has  had  to  pay  for  it,  obliged  to  perform 
operations  of  discoiint  which  would  be  laborious  to  an 
arithmetician.  All  hold  being  lost  on  "  custom,"  how  can 
he  tell  what  he  ought  to  pay  per  pound,  per  bushel,  or  per 
yard  for  articles  of  ordinary  consumption  ?  He  knows 
nothing  about  the  conditions  of  their  production,  and  has 
no  longer  a  traditional  price  to  guide  him.  Formerly,  if 
an  article  of  domestic  consumption  advanced  considerably, 
he  was  in  the  mood  and  in  the  position  to  resist  the  ad- 
vance until  it  proved  itself  a  genuine  one.  He  disputed 
the  higher  price  ;  he  alleged  the  customary  price ;  he  held 
off  purchasing  as  long  as  he  could,  because  he  disliked 
to  pay  the  advance;  he  inquired  elsewhere  to  ascertain 
whether  other  dealers  were  asking  the  same.  "With  a 
community  in  this  temper,  retail  prices  will  not  be  wan- 
tonly advanced ;  nothing  less  than  a  substantial  reason  in 
the  state  of  the  market  will  succeed  in  establishing  a  new 
price,  and  since  every  step  will  be  taken  against  resistance, 
that  new  price  will  be  kept  down  to  something  like  the 
necessity  of  the  case. 

But  under  a  fluctuating  currency  this  hold  of  the  retail 
buyer  upon  customary  price  is  lost.  It  is  with  prescrip- 
tion as  with  a  bank-bill :  when  once  it  is  broken,  the  pieces 
are  soon  gone.1  The  laborer  loses  his  reckoning.  When 
prices  go  up  far  beyond  what  is  usual,  he  can  not  presume 
to  judge  whereabouts  they  should  stop.  After  finding 

1  The  Northern  Monthly,  May,  1868 ;  article,  "  The  Greenback  Era." 


THE  CURRENCY  AND  RETAIL  PRICES.  313 

advance  upon  advance  established,  in  spite  of  his  question- 
ing and  complaints,  he  becomes  discouraged.  He  learns 
to  pay  without  dispute  whatever  the  shopkeeper  demands, 
for  he  has  no  means  of  determining  the  justice  of  that 
demand.  It  is  this  temper  which  enables  the  retail  dealer 
to  gather  his  largest  profits  and  work  his  worst  extor- 
tions. 

This  it  was,  over  and  above  the  proper  effects  of  curren- 
cy inflation,  which  allowed  retail  prices  to  be  carried  up  to 
such  an  unprecedented  height  in  the  United  States  during 
the  war  of  secession,  and  to  be  kept  up  by  combinations 
of  dealers  long  after  whatever  reason  had  existed  for  the 
advance  ceased.  The  extravagant  profits  thus  realized  had 
not,  as  is  well  known,  the  effect  to  invite  true  competition 
tending  to  reduce  prices,  but  merely  served  to  allow  the 
multiplication  of  shops  and  stands  at  every  corner  and  to 
support  an  army  of  middlemen.1 

This  point  is  of  so  much  importance  in  the  philosophy 
of  wages,  that  I  take  the  further  space  to  present  some 
notable  extracts  from  the  writings  of  Mr.  Mill  and  Prof. 
Cairnes  relative  to  the  function  of  "  custom"  in  retail 
trade. 

"  Hitherto,"  says  Mr.  Mill,  "  it  is  only  in  the  great  cen- 
tres of  business  that  retail  transactions  have  been  chiefly, 
or  even  much,  determined  by  competition.  Elsewhere  it 
rather  acts,  when  it  acts  at  all,  as  an  occasional  disturbing 
influence.  The  habitual  regulator  is  custom,  modified, 
from  time  to  time,  by  notions  existing  in  the  minds  of 
purchasers  and  sellers,  of  some  kind  of  equity  or  justice 
.  .  .  Retail  price,  the  price  paid  by  the  actual  con- 
sumer, seems  to  feel  slowly  and  imperfectly  the  effect  of 
competition,  and  where  competition  does  exist,  it  often, 

1  It  appears  that  while  the  total  number  of  persons  reported  as  of 
gainful  occupations  at  the  census  of  1870  was  but  18  per  cent  greater 
than  the  corresponding  number  at  1860,  the  number  engaged  in  trade 
and  transportation  had  increased  in  the  decade  44  per  cent.  "  Some 
Results  of  the  Census."  (Soc.  Science  Journal,  1873,  p.  91.) 


314  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

instead  of  lowering  prices,  merely  divides  the  gain  among 
a  greater  number  of  dealers™ 

"  Competition  in  retail  markets,"  says  Prof.  Cairnes,  "is 
conducted  under  conditions  which  may  be  described  as  of 
greater  friction  than  those  which  exist  in  wholesale  trade. 
In  the  wholesale  market  the  sellers  and  purchasers  meet 
together  in  the  same  place,  affording  thus  to  each  other  re- 
ciprocally the  opportunity  of  comparing  directly  and  at 
once  the  terms  on  which  they  are  severally  disposed  to 
trade.  In  retail  dealing  it  is  otherwise.  In  each  place  of 
sale  there  is  but  one  seller  ;  and  though  it  is  possible  to 
compare  his  terms  with  the  prices  demanded  elsewhere  by 
others,  this  can  not  always  be  done  on  the  moment,  arid 
may  involve  mucli  inconvenience  and  delay.  A  purchaser 
frequently  finds  it  on  the  whole  better  to  take  the  word  of 
the  seller  for  the  fairness  of  the  price  demanded,  than  to 
verify  his  statements  by  going  on  the  occasion  of  every  pur- 
chase to  another  shop.  It  is  probable,  indeed,  that  if  the 
charge  be  excessive,  the  purchaser  will  in  time  come  to 
discover  this,  and  may  then  transfer  his  custom  to  a  cheap- 
er market.  This  shows  that  competition  is  not  inoperative 
in  retail  trade,  but  it  shows  also  the  sort  of  friction  under 
which  it  works,  and  helps  to  explain  what  has  often  been  re- 
marked upon,  and  what,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  practical- 
ly important  people  should  bear  in  mind  —  the  different 
prices  at  which  the  same  commodity  is  frequently  found 
to  sell  within  a  very  limited  range  of  retail  dealing,  al- 
most in  what  we  may  call  the  same  market.  This  is  one 
circumstance  that  distinguishes  retail  from  wholesale  trad- 
ing. The  other  lies  in  the  advantage  which  his  superior 
knowledge  gives  the  seller  over  the  buyer  in  the  transac- 
tion taking  place  between  them  —  a  superiority  which  has 
no  counterpart  in  the  relations  of  wholesale  dealers.  In 
the  wholesale  market  buyer  and  seller  are  upon  a  strictly 
equal  footing  as  regards  knowledge  of  all  the  circumstances 


.  i.  291,292. 


FRICTION  IN  RETAIL  PRICES.  815 

calculated  to  affect  the  price  of  the  commodity  dealt 
in.  .  .  .  The  circumstances  of  retail  dealing  are  here 
again  in  contrast  with  those  of  the  wholesale  trade.  The 
transactions  do  not  take  place  between  dealers  possessing, 
or  with  the  opportunities  of  acquiring,  equal  knowledge 
respecting  the  commodities  dealt  in,  but  between  experts 
on  one  side,  and,  on  the  other,  persons  in  most  cases  whol- 
ly ignorant  of  the  circumstances  at  the  time  affecting  the 
market.  Between  persons  so  qualified  the  game  of  ex- 
change, if  the  rules  be  rigorously  enforced,  is  not  a  fair 
one ;  and  it  has  consequently  been  recognized  universally 
in  England,  and  very  extensively  among  the  better  classes 
of  retail  dealers  in  Continental  countries,  as  a  principle  of 
commercial  morality,  that  the  dealer  should  not  demand 
from  his  customer  a  higher  price  for  his  commodity  than 
the  lowest  he  is  prepared  to  take.1  Retail  buying  and 
selling  is  (sic)  thus  made  to  rest  upon  a  moral  rather  than 
an  economical  basis ;  and,  there  can  be  no  doubt,  for  the 
advantage  of  all  concerned."2 

Prof.  Cairn  es  elsewhere  refers  to  a  the  excessive  fric- 
tion in  the  action  of  competition  in  retail  dealing."  "  The 
sluggish  action  of  competition  in  this  department  of  indus- 
try" (p.  132). 

III.  The  laborer  maybe  put  at  a  disadvantage  through 
the  incidence3  of  taxation. 

1  "  In  the  great  majority  of  cases,  nowadays,  the  debate  about  th« 
value  of  an  article,  called  by  Adam  Smith,  the  higgling  of  the  market, 
is  confined  to  wholesale  purchases  and  sales.     But  a  generation  or  two 
ago,  the  habit  of  bargaining  in  matters  of  retail  trade  was  general.    It 
still  is  a  custom  in  many  European  countries.     It  is  all  but  universal 
in  the  East."— Prof.  Rogers,  Pol.  Econ.,  p.  186.     "The  value  of  any 
thing  in  Spain  is  what  you  can  get  for  it  ;  consequently,  every  pur- 
chase, from  the  most  expensive  articles  of  luxury  down  to  the  poorest 
vegetable,  entails  a  system  of  haggling  and  bargaining."— Mr.  Ffrench's 
Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes,  1871,  p.  606. 

2  Some  Leading  Principles  of  Political  Economy,  pp.  128-30. 

3 1  do  not  speak  here  of  the  degree  of  taxation.  Whether  govern, 
ment  shall  take  much  or  take  little  is  a  political  question.  In  somq 
countries,  even  in  the  present  day,  the  only  limit  to  exactions  appears 


316  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

A  theory  of  taxation  which  has  been  urged  somewhat 
widely  asserts  the  entire  indifference  of  the  place  or  the 
subject  of  imposition.  Instead  of  looking  to  the  individ- 
ual citizen  to  pay  his  personal  contribution,  in  proportion 
to  his  means,  towards  the  support  of  government,  it  is  pro- 
posed to  levy  upon  the  agencies  of  production,  or  upon 
commodities  in  the  course  of  exchange,  or  upon  certain 
species  of  property  visible  and  tangible,  without  considera- 
tion of  the  persons  thus  first  called  upon  to  pay  the  taxes, 
in  the  assurance  that  the  burden  will,  through  the  opera- 
tion of  "  the  laws  of  trade,"  be  diffused,  in  the  course  of 
time,  equally  over  the  entire  community.1 

"We  have,  however,  reached  a  point  of  view  from  which 
we  can  discern  the  fallacy  of  this  doctrine.  The  diffusion 
theory  rests  upon  the  assumption  of  perfect  competition. 
It  is  true  only  under  the  conditions  which  secure  the  com- 
plete mobility  of  capital  and  labor.  Just  so  far  as  any 
class  of  the  community  is  impeded  in  its  resort  to  its  best 
market  by  ignorance,  poverty,  fear,  inertia,  just  so  far  is 
it  possible  that  the  burden  of  taxation  may  rest  where  it 
first  falls.  In  the  language  of  Prof.  Rogers,2  "  taxes  tend 
to  remain  upon  the  person  who  immediately  pays  them ; 
or,  in  other  words,  it  requires  an  effort,  which  is  made 
with  varying  degrees  of  ease  or  difficulty,  to  shift  a  tax 
which  is  paid  by  the  first  payer  to  the  shoulders  of  an- 


to  be  the  limit  of  the  people's  means,  and  all  above  bare  subsistence  is 
carried  away  by  the  strong  arm  of  the  law,  to  be  spent  in  pomp,  lux- 
ury, or  war.  But  this,  as  has  been  said,  is  a  political  question,  and  so 
long  as  taxation  presses  on  each  class  of  the  community  with  weight 
proportional  to  its  strength,  I  do  not  see  that  the  economist  can  take 
account  of  the  amount,  any  more  than  of  the  objects,  of  such  expendi- 
tures. 

1 "  I  hold  it  to  be  true  that  a  tax  laid  in  any  place  is  like  a  pebble 
falling  into  and  making  a  circle  in  a  lake,  till  one  circle  produces  and 
gives  motion  to  another,  and  the  whole  circumference  is  agitated  from 
the  centre." — Speech  of  Lord  Mansfield,  1766,  on  the  right  of  Parlia- 
ment to  tax  the  colonies. 

2  Cobden  and  Political  Opinion,  pp.  83,  84. 


DIFFUSION-THEORY  OF  TAXATION.  317 

oilier."  Not  only  is  the  effort  of  the  first  payer  made 
with  varying  degrees  of  ease  or  difficulty,  but  the  resist- 
ance of  the  other  person,  on  to  whose  shoulders  he  seeks 
to  shift  his  own  burden,  maybe  of  any  degree  of  effective- 
ness, powerful,  intelligent,  and  tenacious,  or  weak,  igno- 
rant, and  spasmodic.  The  result  of  the  struggle  will  de- 
pend on  the  relative  strength  of  the  two  parties ;  and  as 
the  two  parties  are  never  precisely  the  same  in  the  case  of 
two  taxes,  or  two  forms  of  the  same  tax,  it  must  make  a 
difference  upon  what  subjects  duties  are  laid,  what  is  the 
severity  of  the  imposition,  and  at  what  stage  of  produc- 
duction  or  exchange  the  tax  is  collected.1  There  can,  I 
think,  be  no  question  that  under  the  old  regime  a  direc- 
tion was  given  to  taxation  in  every  country  of  Europe,  ex- 
cept Switzerland  and  Holland,  which  was  intended  to  re- 
lieve the  law-making  classes  from  their  just  share  of  the 
expenses  of  government ;  and  there  can,  I  think,  be  as 
little  doubt  that,  clumsy  and  unintelligent  as  was  much  of 
the  financiering  of  those  evil  days,  in  this  respect  at  least 
the  intention  of  the  law-making  classes  was  effectually  ac- 
complished. It  is  the  opinion  of  Prof.  Rogers,  than 
whom,  certainly,  no  man  living  is  more  competent  to 
judge  of  such  a  point,  that  the  real  weight  of  taxation 
during  the  great  continental  wars  of  England,  fell  upon 
and  was  endured  by  the  poorer  classes.2  If  this  was  true 
of  England,  where  the  common  people  never  lost  their 
power  of  self-assertion,  what  shall  be  said  of  the  misera 
plebs  contribuens  of  the  Continent  ? 

Speaking  of  France  under  the  old  regime,  Sir  Arch. 
Alison  says :  "  Heavy  taxes  on  the  farmer,  from  which  the 
clergy  and  nobility  were  exempt,  aggravated  by  the  arbi- 
trary manner  in  which  their  amount  was  fixed  by  the  in- 
tendant,  and  the  vexatious  feudal  privileges  of  the  landed 
proprietors,  depressed  the  laboring  classes,  and  rendered 

1  The  Nation,  June  llth,  1874. 

8  Notes  to  Adam  Smith,  Wealth  of  Nations,  i.  349. 


318  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

prosperity  and  good  management  little  more  than  a  signal 
for  increased  assessment.  Such  was  the  accumulated  effect 
of  these  burdens  that  the  produce  of  an  acre  being  esti- 
mated under  the  old  regime  at  £3  2s.  7^.,  the  king  drew 
£1  18s.  4<#.,  the  landlord  19s.  3<#.,  and  to  the  cultivator  was 
left  the  miserable  pittance  of  5s.,  or  one  twelfth  of  the 
whole,  and  one  eighth  of  the  proprietor's  share  ;  or  if  the 
proprietor  cultivated  his  own  land,  the  king  drew  £1  18s. 
4d.j  and  the  proprietor  only  £1  4s.  3d.  Whereas  in  Eng- 
land the  produce  of  an  acre  being  calculated  at  £8,  the 
rent  may  be  stated  at  £1  10s.,  land  tax  and  poor  rates 
10s.,  and  there  remains  £6  for  the  farmer,  being  twelve 
times  the  amount  of  the  public  burdens,  and  four  times 
that  of  the  rent  to  the  landlord."  (On  Population,  i.  412.) 
And  the  same  writer  (Hist.  Europe,  xxii.  490,  491) 
quotes  from  Bailey dier  as  follows  respecting  the  taxation 
of  Hungary  prior  to  1848  : 

"  To  such  a  length  had  the  abuse  of  these  privileges 
been  carried  that  the  nobles  and  their  servants  paid  no 
toll  on  passing  the  bridge  into  Pesth,  though  it  contributed 
one  of  the  principal  sources  of  revenue  enjoyed  by  the 
town.  The  peasants,  bourgeoisie,  and  mechanics  alone 
were  burdened  with  it.  The  peasant  alone  paid  the  hearth- 
tax  ;  he  alone  contributed  to  the  expenses  of  the  Diet  and 
the  county  charges ;  he  paid  the  dues  of  the  schoolmasters, 
guards,  notaries,  clergy,  and  curates  ;  he  alone  kept  up  the 
roads,  the  bridges,  the  churches,  the  public  buildings,  the 
dykes,  and  the  canals ;  he  alone  paid  the  whole  war  taxes, 
and  furnished  the  recruits  to  the  army ;  and  in  addition 
to  all  this  he  was  compelled  to  hand  over  a  ninth  of  his 
income  to  his  lord,  and  to  give  him  fifty-two  days'  service 
in  the  year.  Finally,  besides  the  charges  of  transporting 
wood  for  his  lord's  family,  he  was  burdened  exclusively 
with  the  quartering  of  soldiers,  and  he  was  compelled  at  all 
times,  and  for  a  merely  nominal  remuneration,  to  furnish 
such  to  the  county  authorities  or  their  attendants.  The 
Spartan  Helots  were  kings  in  comparison." 


CHANGES  OF  TAX-LAWS.  319 

It  may  appropriately  be  added  in  this  connection  that 
while  taxation,  unequal  in  its  incidence,  may  have  the 
cffoct  to  place  the  laborer  at  a  disadvantage,  frequent 
changes  of  tax-laws  are  almost  certain  to  prove  prejudi- 
cial to  his  interests.  We  have  seen  that  there  is  no  assur- 
ance that  excessive  burdens  imposed  by  taxation  ill-con- 
sidered or  intentionally  oppressive  will  be  diffused  by  the 
course  of  exchange  over  the  entire  community  in  due  pro- 
portion, but  it  can  at  least  be  claimed  that  there  is  a  ten- 
dency to  such  a  result,  however  far  that  tendency  may  be 
defeated  or  deferred.  That  this  tendency  should  even 
begin  to  operate  it  is,  However,  essential  that  time  should 
be  given.  It  is  only  by  a  long  course  that  the  ameliorat- 
ing effects  looked  for  in  the  diffusion  of  burdens  can  be 
brought  around,  if  at  all.  If  tax-laws  are  often  to  be 
changed,  the  class  which  is  from  any  cause  already  at 
disadvantage  is  sure  to  suffer  further  and  increasingly. 
Those  who  are  buying  and  selling,  watching  and  manipu- 
lating the  market,  are  certain  to  get  all  the  benefit  of  the 
remissions,  and  to  recoup  themselves  for  all  the  substituted 
impositions.  Those  who  are  economically  weakest,  the 
ignorant,  the  very  poor,  and  those  who  are  distant  from 
the  centres  of  information  and  of  trade,  will  suffer  most. 

IY.  The  wages  class  may  be  put  at  disadvantage  by  in- 
judicious poor-laws.  The  subject  is  a  large  one,  and  I 
must  be  content  with  a  "  fierce  abridgment."  Let  us  go 
back  at  once  to  the  elementary  question,  Why  does  the 
laborer  work  ?  Clearly  that  he  may  eat.  If  he  may  eat 
without  it,  he  will  not  work.  Simple  and  obvious ;  yet  the 
neglect  or  contempt  of  this  truth  by  the  English  Parlia- 
ment, between  1767  and  1832,  brought  the  working  classes 
to  the  verge  of  ruin,  created  a  vast  body  of  pauperism 
which  has  become  hereditary,  and  engendered  vices  in  the 
whole  labor-system  of  the  kingdom  which  work  their  evil 
work  to  this  day.  The  Law  of  Settlement  has  already 
been  spoken  of  among  the  acts  restraining  labor  in  its 
resort  to  market;  let  us  now ' contemplate  the  English 


320  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

poor-laws  as  destroying  the  very  disposition  of  the  labor- 
ing class  to  seek  an  opportunity  to  labor. 

By  statute  of  the  27th  year  of  Henry  VIII.  giving  of 
alms  was  forbidden,  and  collections  for  the  impotent  poor 
were  to  be  made  in  each  parish.  By  1st  Edward  VI. 
bishops  were  authorized  to  proceed  against  persons  who 
should  refuse  to  contribute  or  dissuade  others  from  con- 
tributing. By  5th  Elizabeth  the  justices  were  made 
judges  of  what  constituted  a  reasonable  contribution.  By 
14th  Elizabeth  regular  compulsory  contributions  were  ex- 
acted. But  the  more  famous  act  of  43d  Elizabeth  created 
the  permament  poor-system  of  England.  By  it  every 
person  was  given  a  legal  right  to  relief,  and  the  body  of 
inhabitants  were  to  be  taxed  for  this  object.1  By  sub- 
sequent legislation  the  burden  was  thrown  entire  upon 
the  landowners.  Voluntary  pauperism  was  vigorously 
dealt  with ;  the  able-bodied  were  compelled  to  work ;  while 
by  the  act  of  9th  George  I.  parishes  or  unions  of  parishes 
were  authorized  to  build  workhouses,  a  residence  in  which 
might  be  made  the  condition  of  relief.  This  system,  fairly 
administered,  reduced  the  necessary  evil  of  pauperism  to 
the  minimum.  But,  unfortunately  for  the  working  classes, 
a  different  theory  directed  legislation  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century,  and  a  different  temper  of  adminis- 
tration began  to  prevail.  Six  acts,  passed  in  the  early  part 
of  the  reign  of  George  III.,  intimated  the  changed  spirit 
in  which  pauperism  was  thereafter  to  be  dealt  with.  This 
spirit  found  fuller  expression  in  Gilbert's  act  (22d  George 
III.).  Guardians  were  to  be  appointed  to  protect  the 
poor  against  the  natural  parsimony  of  parish  officers. 
The  workhouse  test  was  repealed  for  the  able-bodied  poor. 
Guardians  were  required  to  find  work  for  all  applicants  as 
near  their  own  homes  as  might  be,  and  to  make  up,  out  of 
the  rates,  any  deficiency  in  wages.  By  this  latter  provi- 

1 J.  W.  Willis  Bund  on  Local  Taxation,  p.  17. 


POOR-LAWS  AND    WAGES.  321 

sion,  says  Sir  George  ETicholls,1  "  the  act  appears  to  as- 
sume that  there  can  never  be  a  lack  of  profitable  employ- 
ment, and  it  makes  the  guardian  of  the  parish  answerable 
for  finding  it  near  the  laborer's  own  residence,  where,  if  it 
existed  at  all,  the  laborer  might  surely,  by  due  diligence, 
find  it  himself.  But  why — it  may  be  asked — should  he 
use  such  diligence  when  the  guardian  is  bound  to  find  it 
for  him,  and  take  the  whole  responsibility  of  bargaining 
for  wages  and  making  up  to  him  all  deficiency?  He  is 
certain  of  employment.  He  is  certain  of  receiving,  either 
from  the  parish  or  the  employer,  sufficient  for  the  main- 
tenance of  himself  and  his  family ;  and  if  he  earns  a  sur- 
plus, he  is  certain  of  its  being  paid  over  to  him.  There 
may  be  uncertainty  with  others  and  in  other  occupations. 
The  farmer,  the  lawyer,  the  merchant,  the  manufacturer, 
however  industrious,  active,  and  observant,  may  labor 
under  uncertainties  in  their  several  callings ;  not  so  the 
laborer.  He  bears,  as  it  were,  a  charmed  life  in  this 
respect,  and  is  made  secure,  and  that,  too,  without  the 
exercise  of  care  or  forethought.  Could  a  more  certain 
way  be  devised  for  lowering  character,  destroying  self- 
reliance,  and  discouraging,  if  not  absolutely  preventing, 
improvement  ?" 

The  experience  of  England,  under  the  operation  of  the 
false  and  vicious  principle  of  Gilbert's  act,  answers  the 
inquiry  with  which  this  quotation  closes,  in  the  negative. 
By  1832  the  principls  had  been  carried  logically  out  to  its 
limits  in  almost  universal  pauperism.  In  the  case  of  one 
parish,  the  collections  of  the  poor-rates  had  actually  ceased, 
because  the  landlords  preferred  to  give  up  their  rents,  the 
clergyman  his  glebe  and  tithes,  the  farmers  their  tenan- 
cies.2 In  numerous  other  parishes  the  pressure  of  the 
poor-rate  had  become  so  great  that  the  net  rent  was  re- 
duced one  half  and  more,  while  it  was  impossible  for  land- 
lords to  find  tenants.  The  pauper  class  had  been  elevated 

1  History  of  the  English  Poor-Laws,  ii.  96,  97.  9  Ibid.,  p.  353. 


THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

by  a  system  of  liberal  relief,  unaccompanied  by  a  work- 
house test,  far  above  the  condition  of  the  independent 
laborers,1  who  had  only  to  drop-down  upon  the  rates  to  be 
better  fed,  clothed,  and  lodged  than  their  utmost  exer- 
tions could  effect  while  working  for  hire.  Thus  not  only 
did  industry  lose  its  natural  reward,  but  a  positive  pre- 
mium was  put  upon  indolence,  wastefulness,  and  vice. 
All  the  incidents  of  the  English  system  were  bad :  the 
allowance  for  each  additional  child  was  so  much  out  of 
proportion  to  the  allowance  for  adults,  that  the  more 
numerous  a  man's  family  the  better  his  condition  ;2  while 
the  allowance  for  illegitimate  children  was  more  liberal 
than  for  those  born  in  wedlock. 

Such  was  the  system  which  the  wisdom  of  Parliament, 
under  the  influence  of  the  squirearchy,  substituted  for  the 
economic  law  that  he  that  would  eat  must  work.  The 
natural  effects  of  this  system  were  wrought  speedily  and 
completely.  The  disposition  to  labor  was  cut  up  by  the 
roots;  all  restraints  upon  increase  of  population  disap 
peared  under  a  premium  upon  births;  self-respect  and 
social  decency  vanished  under  a  premium  upon  bastardy.8 
The  amount  expended  in  the  relief  and  maintenance  of 


1  The  commissioners  of  1832,  as  the  result  of  extended  comparisons, 
found  that,  while  the  pauper  received  151  ounces  of  solid  food  per 
week,  the  independent  laborer  received  but  122  ounces. 

2  "In  some  instances,"  says  Dr.  Chalmers,  "the  vestries  have  felt 
themselves  obliged  to  rent  and  even  to  furnish  houses  for  the  reception 
of  the  newly -married  couple." — Pol.  Econ.  307. 

8  "  The  English  law  has  abolished  female  chastity."— Mr.  Co  well's 
Report. 

"  It  may  safely  be  affirmed  that  the  virtue  of  female  chastity  does 
not  exist  among  the  lower  orders  of  England,  except  to  a  certain 
extent  among  domestic  servants,  who  know  that  they  hold  their 
situations  by  that  tenure,  and  are  more  prudent  in  consequence." — Re- 
port of  the  Commissioners  of  1831. 

"  In  many  rural  districts  it  was  scarcely  possible  to  meet  with  a 
young  woman  who  was  respectable,  so  tempting  was  the  parish 
allowance  for  infants  in  a  time  of  great  pressure." — Martineau, 
Hist.  England,  iii.  168. 


THE  ENGLISH  POOR-LAWS.  323 

the  poor  had  risen  to  £7,036,969,  or  10  shillings  per  head 
of  the  population.  In  this  exigency,  which  in  truth  con- 
stituted one  of  the  gravest  crises  of  English  history,  Parlia- 
ment, by  the  Poor-Law  Amendment  Act  (4th  and  5th 
William  IY.),  returned  to  the  principle  of  the  earlier  laws ; 
that  principle  being,  as  expressed  by  Prof.  Senior,  that  it 
is  "  the  great  object  of  pauper  legislation"  to  render  "  the 
situation  of  the  pauper  less  agreeable  than  that  of  the  in- 
dependent laborer."1  The  workhouse  test  was  restored, 
allowances  in  aid  of  wages  were  abolished,  paid  overseers 
were  to  be  appointed,  and  a  central  commission  was  insti- 
tuted for  the  due  supervision  of  the  system.  Illegitimacy 
was  discouraged  by  making  the  father  responsible,  instead 
of  rewarding  the  mother,  as  under  the  former  system. 
The  conditions  of  "  settlement"  were  mitigated  so  as  to 
facilitate  the  migration  of  laborers  in  search  of  employ- 
ment. 

By  this  great  legislative  reform  the  burden  of  pauperism, 
notwithstanding  that  the  evil  effects  of  the  old  system  still 
remained  in  a  great  degree,  had  by  1837  become  so  much 
reduced  that  the  expenditure,  per  head  of  the  population, 
sank  to  5s.  5d.  Mr.  Baxter  in  his  work  on  Local  Taxa- 
tion2 gives  some  of  the  details  by  counties  : 

1834.  1837. 

Sussex 18s.    Id.  8s.    7d. 

Bedford 16      4  80 

Bucks 16     11  88 

Northampton 15       8  83 

Suffolk ,.     16       7  93 

There  is  no  need  to  draw,  at  any  length,  the  moral  of 
this  episode  in  the  industrial  history  of  England.  It  is  of 
the  highest  economical  importance  that  pauperism  shall 
not  be  made  inviting.  It  is  not  necessary  that  any  bru- 
tality of  administration  shall  deter  the  worthy  poor  from 
public  relief,  but,  in  Prof.  Senior's  phrase,  the  situation  of 

1  Foreign  Poor-La ws,  etc.,  p.  88. 
*  P.  11. 


324  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

the  pauper,  whether  in  or  out  of  the  workhouse,  should  al- 
ways be  made  less  agreeable  than  that  of  the  independent 
laborer.  The  workhouse  test  for  all  the  able-bodied  poor, 
and  genuine  labor  up  to  the  limit  of  strength  within  the 
workhouse,  are  imperatively  demanded  by  the  interests  of 
self-supporting  labor.  One  might,  indeed,  hesitate  to  carry 
the  labor  test  quite  so  far  as  Pennant  observed  it  in  his  Second 
Tour  in  Scotland,  where  he  writes  :  "  The  workhouse  is 
thinly  inhabited,  for  few  of  the  poor  choose  to  enter  :  those 
whomever  necessity  compels  are  most  usefully  employed. 
With  pleasure  I  observed  old  age,  idiocy,  and  even  in- 
fants of  three  years  of  age  contributing  to  their  own  sup- 
port l)y  the  pulling  of  oakum"1  There  is  no  reason  that 
I  know  of,  why  the  principle  of  the  factory  acts  should  not 
be  extended  to  the  poor-asylum,  to  excuse  infants  of  tender 
years  from  work,  or  any  danger  to  helpful  labor  in  allow- 
ing repose  to  old  age  or  idiocy ;  but  wherever  there  is  a 
possible  choice  between  self-support  and  public  support, 
there  the  inclination  of  the  poor  to  labor  for  their  own  sub- 
sistence should  be  quickened  by  something  of  a  penalty, 
though  not  in  the  way  of  cruelty  or  of  actual  privation, 
upon  the  pauper  condition.  "  All,"  says  Mr.  George 
Woodyatt  Hastings,  "  who  have  administered  the  Poor 
Law  must  know  the  fatal  readiness  with  which  those 
hovering  on  the  brink  of  pauperism  believe  that  they  can 
not  earn  a  living,  and  the  marvellous  way  in  which,  if  the 
test  be  firmly  applied,  the  means  of  subsistence  will  be 
found  somehow.'" 

Y.  May  the  laborer  be  put  at  disadvantage  through 
the  form  in  which  his  wages  are  paid  ?  A  great  deal  of 
public  indignation  and  not  a  little  of  the  force  of  law3 
have  been  levelled  at  TRUCK.  How,  in  an  effort  to  treat 
the  wages  question  systematically,  are  we  to  regard  this 
practice  ? 

1  Pinkerton,  iii.  197. 

9  Soc.  Sc.  Transactions,  1871,  p.  146. 

*  About  sixty  acts  of  the  British  Parliament  have  dealt  with  Truck. 


THE  TRUCK  SYSTEM.  335 

To  truck  (Fr.  Troc)  is  to  exchange  commodities,  to 
barter.  The  truck  system  of  wages,  then,  is  the  barter  sys- 
tem introduced  between  the  laborer  and  his  employer. 
What  objection  can  there  be  to  this  ?  How  can  it  be  sup- 
posed to  injure  the  laboring  class  ?  I  shall  discuss  this 
question  at  length,  not  more  on  account  of  its  intrinsic  im- 
portance, than  because  it  affords  an  excellent  practical  ap- 
plication of  important  principles  relating  to  the  distri- 
bution of  wealth. 

The  truck  system  may  take  two  forms.  First,  there 
may  be  given  to  the  laborer  a  portion  of  that  which  he 
actually  produces,  whether  that  product  be  suitable  to  his 
wants  or  not,  leaving  him,  in  the  latter  event,  to  exchange 
it  as  he  can  for  whatever  he  may  desire,  food,  drink,  cloth- 
ing, fuel  or  shelter.  Second,  under  the  truck  system 
the  laborer  may  receive,  not  what  he  produces,  but  what 
he  is  to  consume;  he  is  paid  in  commodities  supposed  to 
be  more  or  1  ess  suited  to  his  wants. 

Both  these  forms  of  truck  are  as  old  as  labor ;  but  in 
the  earliest  times  they  were  generally  found  not  separate 
but  united.  What  the  workman  produced  he  also  de- 
sired to  consume,  and  for  his  labor  in  tending  sheep  and 
cattle,  and  in  sowing  and  reaping  grain,  he  received  wool 
for  his  clothing,  and  meat  and  bread  for  his  food.  And  so 
to-day  are  the  laborers  of  many  countries  mainly  paid  ;  and 
doubtless  in  the  majority  of  cases  the  practice  is  both  nec- 
essary and  beneficial.  But  when  distinction  came  to  be 
made  of  labor  as  agricultural  and  as  mechanical,  and 
when  employments  came  to  be  much  subdivided,  it  would 
happen  that  a  laborer's  production  was  calculated  to  sup- 
ply but  a  part  only,  or  perhaps  none  at  all,  of  his  wants ; 
for  it  might  be  that  an  artisan  of  Birmingham  or  Shef- 
field would  be  employed  in  making  an  article  which  he  not 
only  never  used  but  never  even  saw  used.  Hence,  if  he 
were  to  be  paid  in  kind,  he  would  be  obliged  to  sell  or  ex- 
change the  same  for  commodities  more  suitable  to  his  ne- 
cessities, and  this,  it  will  be  seen,  he  might  have  to  do  at 


826  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

a  very  great  disadvantage,  having  no  place  of  trade,  no 
business  acquaintance,  and  no  time  to  spend  in  bartering 
off  his  wares .  So  we  find,  in  the  fourth  year  (1464)  of 
King  Edward  IY.  of  England,  an  act  passed  in  which  oc- 
curs the  following : 

"  Also  whereas,  before  this  Time,  in  the  occupations  of 
Cloth-Making,  the  Laborers  thereof  have  been  driven  to 
take  a  great  part  of  their  Wages  in  Pins,  Girdles,  and  other 
unprofitable  wares,  under  such  price  that  it  did  not  extend 
unto  ....  therefore  it  is  ordained  and  established 
that  every  man  and  woman  being  cloth-makers,  from  the 
(said)  feast  of  St.  Peter,  shall  pay  to  the  carders,  spinsters, 
and  all  such  other  laborers,  in  any  part  of  the  said  trade, 
lawful  money  for  all  their  lawful  wages." 

This  is  the  first  English  act  aimed  at  the  truck  system. 
Between  that  and  the  act  of  1st  and  2d  "William  IY.  (c.  37) 
intervened  nearly  four  centuries,  during  which  this  system, 
in  one  or  both  its  phases,  prevailed  in  respect  to  a  great 
part  of  English  labor,  and  apparently  the  British  Parlia- 
ment lias  not  even  yet  done  legislating  about  it. 

I  have  said  that  the  second  form  of  truck  is  where  the 
laborer  is  paid  in  commodities  supposed  to  be  suitable  to 
his  wants  as  a  consumer,  irrespective  of  the  question 
whether  he  has  helped  to  produce  the  identical  articles  or 
similar  articles  himself.  This  is  done  where  board  is 
given  as  a  part  of  wages,  but  truck  to  this  extent  was  ex- 
pressly excepted1  from  the  prohibitions  of  the  great  Eng- 
lish truck  act — namely,  that  of  William  IY.,  already  re- 
ferred to.  Another  form  of  partial  payment  which  is  in  the 
nature  of  truck,  is  the  allowance  of  perquisites  and  privi- 
leges, such  as  the  keep  of  a  cow,  the  gleaning  of  the 
wheat-field,  the  cutting  of  turf,  and  others  which  we  have 
had  occasion  to  mention  in  speaking  of  the  difficulty  of 


1  It  was  made  lawful  to  stop  wages  on  account  of  victuals  dressed  or 
prepared  under  the  roof  of  the  employer  and  there  consumed  by  the 
artificer. 


BEER  AND  CIDER  TRUCK.  827 

estimating  the  real  wages  of  the  laborer.  This  kind  of 
payment  prevails,  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  mainly  in 
respect  to  agricultural  labor,  and  agricultural  truck  was 
not  forbidden1  by  the  act  of  William  IV.  One  form  of 
agricultural  truck  deserves  especially  to  be  noted.  It  is 
found  in  the  beer  or  cider  allowances  so  prevalent  in  Eng- 
land.3 The  farms  in  that  country  where  such  payment  is 
not  stipulated  or  is  not  customary  would  doubtless  be 
found,  on  a  count,  to  be  in  a  decided  minority.  In  many 
cases  the  allowance  is  in  amount  reasonable,  if  we  assume 
that  the  use  of  these  drinks  in  any  quantity  at  all  is  de- 
sirable ;  but  in  a  vast  number  of  instances  the  figures 
of  these  allowances  as  reported  are  startling  to  minds 
unfamiliar  with  the  statistics  of  beer-gardens.  In  some 
places  Mr.  Purdy  reports3  that  the  men  have  from  2  to  4: 
quarts  of  beer  daily ;  women  and  children  half  that  quan- 
tity. The  cider-truck  would  seem  to  be  carried  to  a  far 
greater  extent.  Mr.  Edward  Spender  states4  that  the  agri- 
cultural laborers  of  the  cider-producing  countries,  particu- 
larly Herefordshire  and  Devonshire,  receive  from  20  to  50 
per  cent  of  their  wages  in  cider !  Eight  to  twenty  pints  a  day 
he  indicates  as  the  actual  range.5  With  such  a  state  of 

1 "  Nothing  herein  contained  shall  extend  to  any  domestic  servant,  or 
servant  in  husbandry"  (xx.).  This  exception  was  due  in  part  to  the  rea- 
son of  the  case,  and  in  part,  we  can  not  doubt,  to  the  want  of  political 
power  in  the  agricultural  labor  class. 

2  The  words  of  the  Massachusetts  General  Court  are  worthy  to  be 
commended  to  the  high  and  mighty  Parliament  of  England.  "Whereas 
it  is  found,  by  too  common  and  sad  experience,  in  all  parts  of  the 
colony,  that  the  forcing  of  laborers  and  other  workmen  to  take  wine  in 
pay  for  their  labor  is  a  great  nursery  or  preparative  to  drunkenness  and 
unlawful  tippling,  .  .  .  it  is  therefore  ordered  and  ordained  by  this  Court 
that  no  laborer  or  workman  whatsoever  shall,  after  the  publication  and 
promulgation  hereof,  be  enforced  or  pressed  to  take  wine  in  pay  for 
his  labor/'  (May  14,  1645.) 

8  Statistical  Journal,  xxvii.  526. 

4  Statistical  Journal,  xxiv.  333,  cf.  339. 

*  "  In  Herefordshire  it  has  happened  that  a  farmer  paid  his  laborers  9 
shillings  a  week  in  money,  and  during  harvest-time  9  gallons  of  cider  a 


328  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

things,  no  wonder  Mr.  Spender  can  quote  the  statement  of 
a  medical  gentleman,  long  resident  in  the  cider  district, 
that  "  the  failure  of  the  apple  crop  has  the  same  favorable 
effects  on  the  health  of  the  laborer  as  the  good  drainage  of 
a  parish  has  on  the  health  of  the  inhabitants  generally." 

But  the  form  of  truck  which  has  especially  excited  the 
opposition  of  the  working  classes,  and  which  has  been 
stringently  prohibited1  by  law  in  England,  is  the  furnish- 
ing by  the  employer  to  the  mechanical  laborer,  of  goods 
for  his  personal  and  family  consumption,  the  charges  for 
the  same  being  set  off  against  the  wages  due.  It  is  of 
truck  in  this  sense  only  that  we  shall  hereafter  speak. 

The  custom  of  part-payment  in  goods,  which  at  one 
time  prevailed  almost  universally  in  many  districts  in 
England  and  very  generally  in  the  United  States,  did  not 
fail  to  find  excuse  for  itself  in  the  supposed  advantage  of 
both  parties.  It  was  claimed  that,  in  many  branches  of 


week."  Mr.  Spender's  computations  assume  that  the  cider  was  a  good 
merchantable  article.  On  this  point  see  Heath's  English  Peasantry. 
One  of  the  "  clergy  returns"  published  in  the  Report  of  the  Convoca- 
tion of  Canterbury  on  Intemperance,  states  the  allowance  of  cider  to  a 
laborer  at  harvest-time  at  2£  gallons  daily  ;  another  at  nearly  2  gallons 
(p.  39).  In  one  of  the  "  workhouse  returns"  the  governor  speaks  of  la- 
borers as  "swallowing,  some  of  them,  as  much  as  3  or  4  gallons  a 
day."  (Ibid.,  p.  40.) 

1  The  Act  of  1st  and  2d  William  IV.  provides  that  "  in  all  contracts  for 
the  hiring  of  any  artificer  in  any  of  the  trades  enumerated,  the  wages 
of  such  artificer  shall  be  made  payable  in  the  current  coin  of  the  realm, 
and  not  otherwise."  The  trades  enumerated  are  the  manufactures  of 
iron  and  steel ;  the  mining  of  coal  or  iron,  limestone,  salt-rock ;  the 
working  or  getting  of  clay,  stone,  or  slate  ;  manufactures  of  salt,  bricks, 
tiles,  or  quarries ;  hardware  manufactures,  textile  manufactures,  glass, 
china,  and  earthenware,  manufactures  of  leather,  and  others. 

There  was  excepted  the  right  to  supply  to  artificers  medicine  and 
medical  attendance ;  fuel,  materials,  tools,  and  implements  in  mining  ; 
also  hay,  corn,  and  pr.n  ender  to  be  consumed  by  any  horse  or  beast  of 
burden  employed  by  the  artificer  in  the  occupation ;  also,  to  furnish 
tenements  at  a  rent  to  be  thereon  reserved  ;  also,  to  advance  to  arti- 
ficers money  to  be  contributed  to  friendly  societies  and  savings-banks, 
or  for  relief  in  sickness,  or  for  the  education  of  children. 


RAILWAY  AND  MINING   TRUCK.  329 

industry,  the  proximity  of  stores  and  shops  kept  by  per- 
sons disconnected  with  the  employers  could  not  be  relied 
on  to  the  degree  required  for  the  supply  of  the  laborers' 
wants.  This  plea  was  urged  with  most  assurance,  and 
probably  with  the  greatest  degree  of  truth,  in  respect  to 
truck-stores  for  navvies  engaged  upon  canals  and  rail- 
ways, as  the  gangs  employed  on  such  works  are,  from  the 
nature  of  the  work,  continually  shifting  their  place,  and 
often  pushing  into  districts  settled  sparsely  or  not  at  all. 
At  the  same  time,  evidence  was  presented  in  the  Com- 
mons Report  on  Railway  Laborers  (1846)  going  to  show 
that  the  supposed  necessity  for  truck  did  not  exist  even. 
here.1  But  as  the  building  of  canals  and  railways  had 
reached  no  great  proportions  in  1831,  when  the  act  of  1st 
and  2d  William  IY.  prohibiting  truck  passed,  this  depart- 
ment of  industry  was  omitted  from  the  enumeration  in 
that  act,  and  the  truck  system  was  kept  up  in  full  vigor 
on  the  canals  and  railways  of  the  kingdom  long  after  it 
had  ceased  elsewhere,  or  had  sunk  into  an  illicit  traffic  main- 
tained, under  disguise  and  at  risk,  by  the  least  reput- 
able employers. 

The  department  of  industry  which,  next  to  that  men- 
tioned, put  in  the  strongest  plea  for  truck,  was  coal  and 
iron  mining.  In  the  nature  of  the  case,  works  of  this 
character  are  found  principally  at  considerable  elevations, 
upon  difficult  and  broken  ground,  and  often  at  consider- 
able distances  from  market  towns.'  Hence  the  proprie- 
tors were  not  without  a  show  of  reason  in  holding  that 
the  prompt  and  sure  supply  of  a  large  and  perhaps  fluc- 
tuating body  of  workmen  required  that  shops  for  the 
sale  of  the  necessaries  of  life  should  be  established  in  im- 
mediate connection  with  the  works  themselves. 

1  Sir  Morton  Peto,  then  a  great  contractor,  and  one  of  the  partners 
of  Thomas  Brassey,  testified  that  there  was  no  difficulty  in  provision- 
ing men  on  the  most  remote  sections  of  railway.  (Report,  p.  75.) 

8  Commons  Committee  on  Payment  of  Wages  Bill,  1854.  Report, 
pp.  37-9. 


330  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

But  the  opportunity  to  add  to  the  profits  of  manufac- 
ture the  profits,  and  (through  the  unscrupulous  exercise 
of  the  influence  and  authority  of  the  employer)  more  than 
the  ordinary  profits,  of  trade,  did  not  suffer  truck  to  be 
confined  to  departments  of  industry  presenting  so  much 
of  an  excuse  for  the  system  as  the  building  of  canals  and 
railways,  and  the  mining  of  coal  and  iron.  Truck  long 
prevailed,  to  a  vast  extent,  in  connection  with  many 
branches  of  manufacture,  and  in  many  communities,  where 
no  reason  but  the  greed  of  employers  existed  for  the 
practice.  Workmen  were  compelled  to  buy  at  the  mas- 
ter's store,  on  pain  of  discharge.  Sometimes  hints  accom- 
plished the  object ;  sometimes  threats  were  necessary ; 
sometimes  examples  had  to  be  made.  However  strong 
the  disapprobation  of  the  workmen,  or  of  the  larger  com- 
munity around,  the  profits  of  truck  were  so  enormous  as 
to  overcome  the  scruples  and  the  shame  of  many  em- 
ployers. Those  profits  were  five-fold.  First,  the  ordi- 
nary profit  of  the  retail  trader,  large  as  that  is,  and 
larger  as  we  know  it  becomes,  in  proportion  to  the  igno- 
rance and  poverty  of  the  customer.  Second,  there  was  a 
great  diminution  of  ordinary  expenses,  due  to  the  com- 
pulsion exercised.  The  trader,  who  was  also  the  manufac- 
turer, did  not  have  to  resort  to  costly  advertising  to  draw 
custom,  to  maintain  an  attractive  establishment  in  a  con- 
venient location,  or  to  keep  up  an  efficient  body  of  clerks 
and  attendants.  The  only  advertisement  needed  was  the 
ominous  notice  to  trade  there :  the  store  might  be  the 
merest  barn,  the  service  might  be  reduced  to  a  degree 
involving  the  greatest  inconvenience,  and  even  hardship, 
to  the  customer.1  Third,  it  seems  to  be  abundantly 

1  Mr.  Seymour  Tremenheere,  in  his  exhaustive  evidence  before  the 
Select  Committee  of  1854,  stated  that  the  truck-shops  were  so  small, 
and  the  persons  retained  to  serve  customers  so  few,  that  the  women 
attending  to  get  supplies  for  their  families,  on  the  credit  of  their  hus- 
bands' wages,  frequently  could  not  enter,  but  that  fifty  or  one  hundred 
would  be  seen  collected  outside,  waiting  their  turn  to  be  served.  Ha 


TRUCK  PRACTICES.  831 

proved,  by  the  evidence  before  the  several  commissions 
and  committees,  that  the  charges  at  the  truck-shops  were 
generally  higher  by  5,  10,  or  15  per  cent  than  at  the  ordi- 
nary retail  stores.  Fourth,  the  employer,  having  the 
absolute  control  of  the  laborers'  wages,  incurred  no  bad 
debts  such  as  eat  up  the  profit  of  the  open  trader.  Fifth, 
the  quality  of  the  goods  furnished  was  likely  to  be  as 
best  suited  the  interests  of  the  employer,  who,  for  the 
best  of  reasons,  feared  no  loss  of  custom. 

Such  was  truck  in  England  before  the  act  of  1st  and  2d 
William  IY. ;  and  there  can  be  no  question  in  the  mind  of 
any  candid  person  who  peruses  the  painful  evidence  ad- 
duced in  the  course  of  the  several  inquiries  which  took 
place  before  and  after  that  legislation,  and  who  carefully 
considers  the  nature  of  the  case,  that,  whether  the  system 
be  intrinsically  mischievous  or  not,  abuses1  shameful  and 


had  himself  seen  women  with  children  in  their  arms  standing  in  the 
open  air  in  bad  weather,  and  on  asking  had  been  told  they  had  been 
waiting  for  hours.  (Report,  p.  8.) 

Other  witnesses  placed  the  time  for  which  a  woman  might  thus 
be  compelled  to  wait  at  the  truck-shop  at  two,  four,  or  six  hours,  or 
even  longer.  (Report,  pp.  42,  128,  156-7,  322,  830,  371.)  Meanwhile 
the  children  not  in  arms  were  locked  up  at  home. 

Mr.  J.  Fellows,  Registrar  of  Births,  Marriages,  and  Deaths  at  Bilston, 
but  also,  it  ought  to  be  mentioned,  a  retail  grocer,  stated  that  in  six- 
teen years  he  had  had  occasion  to  record  a  number  of  deaths,  which  he 
placed,  from  memory,  at  eleven,  of  young  children  burned  in  the  ab- 
sence of  their  mothers  while  waiting  at  these  shops.  (Report,  p.  43). 

1  Sir  Archibald  Alison  appeared  before  the  Committee  of  1854  as  the 
champion  of  truck. 

"  I  think,"  he  said,  "  generally  speaking,  the  people  are  furnished 
with  subsistence,  and  with  articles  of  use  for  themselves  and  their 
families  infinitely  better  than  from  the  stores  of  private  dealers."— Re- 
port, p.  229. 

"  From  all  that  I  have  seen  I  think  the  establishment  of  stores  luia 
been  followed  by  a  great  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  work- 
men."— Ibid. 

"I have  known  instances  of  workmen  going  miles  to  the  master's 
stores  in  preference  to  dealing  with  the  private  shops." — P.  234. 
".  .  .  .  the  immense  advantage  of  the  truck  system  in  compelling 


332  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

even  horrible  were  perpetrated  under  it.  Doubtless  there 
was  much  passionate  exaggeration  by  men  smarting  under 
its  evils,  as  there  was  in  respect  to  the  abuses  of  the  old 
unreformed  jails  ;  to  the  wrongs  of  American  slavery  ;  to 
the  outrages  of  the  Confederate  prison-pens  ;  but  if  the 
simple  truth  respecting  truck  in  England  in  the  early  days 
of  this  century  could  be  written  out,  it  would  form  one  of 
the  most  painful  chapters  in  the  long  and  dreary  story  of 
"  man's  inhumanity  to  man." 

Another  wrong  which  it  is  charged  is  done  to  laborers 
through  the  form  of  their  payment,  is  by  the  so-called 
rental  by  the  employer  to  the  laborer,  of  the  tools  and 
machines  necessary  to  production,  the  wages  being  stop- 
ped to  the  amount  of  the  "  rent."  This  alleged  abuse 
attracted  attention  from  economists  and  legislators  in 
England  particularly  in  connection  with  the  hosiery  man- 
ufacture, and  we  will,  for  brevity,  draw  our  illustrations 
wholly  from  that  branch  of  industry. 

The  system  of  Frame  Rents,  as  exposed  by  the  evidence 
before  the  Commission  of  1S44  and  the  Committee  of 
1855,  was  this: 

Instead  of  the  employer  hiring  laborers  to  work  upon 
his  own  machines,  paying  them  net  wages  for  their  ser- 
vice, the  knitting  is  let  out  to  middlemen  upon  contracts ; 
"  the  middleman  supplies  the  workman  with  frames  and 
other  machinery,  sometimes  belonging  to  himself  and 
sometimes  hired  of  the  manufacturer  or  other  owner,  and 
when  he  settles  with  the  workman,  he  deducts  out  of  the 
gross  price  per  dozen  of  the  work  performed,  iirst,  a  sum 

the  workman  to  spend  a  large  portion  of  his  earnings  in  food  for  himself 
and  his  family."— P.  245. 

"I  think  the  workmen  in  the  great  manufactories  and  collieries  are 
just  like  a  great  ill-disciplined  army.  It  is  just  as  impossible  to  make 
them  dispose  of  their  money  properly  as  it  would  be  to  provide  an  army 
with  adequate  subsistence  if  you  were  to  abolish  the  commissariat  and 
pay  every  man  in  money,  and  let  him  buy  his  provisions  where  he 
pleased."— Pp.  237,  238. 


FHANE  TiENTS.  -333 

as  rent  for  the  use  of  the  frame;  secondly,  a  sum  for 
winding  the  yarn,  which  is  a  necessary  operation  for  each 
workman  ;  a  third  sum  to  remunerate  himself  for  the  use 
of  the  premises  where  the  work  is  performed,  and  for  the 
standing-room  of  the  frame ;  and  a  fourth  for  his  trouble 
and  loss  of  time  in  procuring  and  conveying  to  the  work- 
man the  materials  to  be  manufactured,  for  his  responsibili- 
ty to  the  manufacturer  for  the  due  return  of  the  materials 
when  manufactured,  for  superintending  the  work  itself, 
and  for  his  pains  in  sorting  the  goods  when  made,  and  in 
redelivering  them  at  the  warehouse  of  the  manufacturer." 
The  language  quoted  is  that  of  the  Committee  of  1855. 

That  this  system  of  gross  wages,  with  deductions  to  be 
made  for  the  use  of  machinery  employed  and  on  the  other 
accounts  specified,  was  not  necessary  to  protect  the  owners 
of  the  machinery  was  abundantly  proved  by  the  fact  that 
in  trades  requiring  the  use  of  even  more  costly  and  deli- 
cate machinery,  the  plan  of  clear  net  wages  prevailed. 
The  real  reason  for  the  frame-rent  system,  as  brought  out 
unmistakably  by  the  evidence,  was  the  profit  to  be  made 
from  the  use  of  the  frames,  owned  partly  by  the  manufac- 
turers and  partly  by  the  middlemen.  This  was  admitted 
by  the  manufacturers  themselves,  who  even  claimed  that 
but  for  this  profit  they  could  not  carry  on  their  business  in 
a  depressed  condition  of  trade.1 


1  Just  as  Sir  Archibald  Alison  admitted,  the  masters  made  use  of 
the  opportunities  of  the  truck-system.  Thus  he  speaks  of  ' '  periods 
of  great  distress,  when  the  masters  are  driven  to  be  sharp  with  their 
furnishings."  (Report  of  the  Committee  of  1854,  p.  232.)  "  I  have  no 
doubt  that  under  these  circumstances,  during  these  periods  of  distress, 
they  sometimes  furnish  inferior  articles,  at  least  to  what  they  have 
furnished  before."  ....  The  complaints  which  I  have  heard 
have  almost  always  been  complaints  about  measure ;  or,  in  some  in- 
stances, I  have  heard  complaints,  in  periods  of  distress,  that  the  quali- 
ty of  the  goods  was  inferior."  ....  I  think  when  a  master  is 
receiving  high  prices  for  his  articles,  for  iron  and  coal,  then  his 
pockets  are  full  of  money,  he  is  in  affluent  circumstances,  and  he  is 
not,  therefore,  under  the  necessity  of  being  strict  with  his  furnishings ; 


334  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

The  fact  of  rents  so  high  as  to  make  this  profit  often 
enormous  was  abundantly  proved.  Mr.  Muggeridge  pre- 
sented authentic  accounts  of  transactions  where  the  an- 
nual rent  charged  approached,  equalled,  or  even  exceeded 
the  value  of  the  frames.  Thus  one  workman  in  22  years 
paid  as  rent  upon  a  frame  worth  but  £8  or  £9  between 
£170  and  £180.1  Another  paid  ninepence  a  week  for  30 
years,  on  a  frame  costing  at  the  beginning  but  £7,  and 
requiring  but  £6  or  £7  for  repairs  during  the  entire 
period.  Still,  again,  Mr.  William  Biggs,  a  member  of  the 
Committee  of  1855,  had  testified  before  the  Commission 
of  1844  that  during  the  two  years  1835-36  his  firm  owned 
£8000  of  frames  ;  that  the  rents  amounted  to  £5100, 
which,  after  deducting  5  per  cent  interest  per  annum  on 
the  capital  invested,  and  the  cost  of  all  repairs  and  inciden- 
tal expenses,  left  a  clear  profit  of  £1950,  or  24£  per  cent 
for  the  two  years. 

Such  was  the  system  by  the  admission  of  those  inte- 
rested in  its  maintenance.  But  there  can  be  no  question 
that  abuses  were  easily  perpetrated  under  it.  "The 
amount  of  this  deduction,"  says  Mr.  Muggeridge,2  "is 
regulated  by  no  fixed  rule  or  principle  whatever ;  it  is  not 
dependent  upon  the  value  of  the  frame,  upon  the  amount 
of  money  earned  on  it,  or  on  the  extent  of  the  work 
made;  it  has  differed  in  amount  at  different  times,  and 
now  does  so  in  different  places ;  the  youthful  learner  or 
apprentice  pays  the  same  rate  from  his  scanty  earnings  as 

tli at  is  to  say,  when  trade  is  good,  he  gives  good  measure,  lie  gives  the 
best  articles,  and  is  liberal  with  his  workmen  ;  he  does  not  feel  the 
pressure  himself.  If  in  bad  times  he  is  out  at  elbow  and  feels  the 
pressure,  as  he  always  does  in  a  monetary  crisis,  then  he  is  obliged  to 
be  more  strict  with  his  workmen,  and  then  complaints  are  made." 
There  is  something  beautiful  in  this  Tory  confidence  in  human  nature, 
leading  to  the  assurance  that  masters  will  never  cheat  their  workmen 
in  measure  or  quality  unless  it  is  positively  necessary  to  save  them- 
selves. 

1  Report  of  the  Committee  of  1855,  p.  160. 

8  Ibid. 


TRUCK  AND  LA18SEZ  FAIRE.  335 

the  most  expert  and  skilful  workman  in  the  trade  from 
his  of  four-fold  the  amount."  Moreover,  the  workman, 
obliged  to  hire  the  machine  if  he  would  have  employment 
at  all,  was  compelled,  not  infrequently,  to  pay  the  rent 
not  only  when  prevented  by  sickness  from  labor,  but  also 
when  no  work  was  furnished  him  by  the  middleman,  who 
had  a  direct  interest  not  only  in  "  spreading  the  work  over 
a  greater  number  of  frames  than  were  requisite,"1  the 
amount  given  out  being,  accordingly,  in  some  cases,  "  what 
would  be  three  full  days'  work  in  a  week,  in  others  four, 
in  some  as  little  as  two,"2  but  also  in  keeping  inferior  ma- 
chines of  antiquated  pattern  worn  to  the  very  edge  of 
absolute  inefficiency,  since  the  less  each  machine  could 
perform,  the  larger  the  number  which  would  be  required ; 
and  the  more  hands  he  could  hold  in  dependence  on  him 
for  an  inadequate  occupation,  the  more  complete  his  control 
over  these  unfortunates ;  the  more  meagre  the  living  they 
were  able  to  get  off  their  frames,  the  less  likely  they  were 
to  have  either  the  spirit  or  the  material  means  to  remove. 


I  have  given  so  much  space  to  the  questions  of  Truck 
and  Frame  Rents,  both  because  of  their  prominence  in 
the  history  of  labor  and  in  economical  literature,  and  be- 
cause they  afford  illustrations  of  certain  very  important 
principles  in  the  philosophy  of  wages. 

To  the  appeals  of  the  working  classes  for  legislation 
abolishing  these  systems,  the  economists  of  the  Manches- 
ter school  have  replied  with  the  doctrine  of  laissez  faire. 
Asserting,  as  they  did  in  their  contest  for  free  trade,  the 
self-sufficiency  of  capital,  they  felt  bound  to  vindicate  their 
consistency  by  asserting  the  self-sufficiency  of  labor.  To 
them  truck  and  frame-rents  were  a  mode  of  ascertaining 
the  wages  of  labor ;  and  they  deemed  the  hours  and  me- 

1  Report  of  the  Committee  of  1855,  pp.  163, 164,  cf.  p.  22. 

2  Ibid.,  p.  105,  cf.  p.  24. 


836  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

tliods  of  labor  and  the  amount  and  kind  of  wages  mat- 
ters  to  be  left  to  employers  and  employed,1  subject  only  to 
the  "  law  of  supply  and  demand."  By  the  operation  of 
this  law,  they  claimed,  the  employer  gets  the  laborer's  ser- 
vices for  the  least  sum  possible  under  the  conditions  of 
supply ;  and  on  the  other,  the  laborer  secures  the  greatest 
sum  for  his  services  consistent  with  the  existing  demand. 
The  employer's  least  price  and  the  laborer's  greatest  price 
are  therefore  the  same,  and  no  injustice  can  be  done  so 
long  as  both  parties  are  left  free  by  law. 

It  is,  however,  fairly  a  question  whether  the  writers  and 
statesmen  of  this  school,  in  their  valorous  disposition  to 
stand  by  their  principle  in  every  case  where  issue  on  it 
might  be  joined,  have  not  mistaken  their  ground  in  the 
matter  of  frame-rents  and  truck.  Surely,  freedom  of 
contract,  on  which  the  Manchesterians  insist  so  strongly, 
does  not  involve  freedom  to  break  contracts  or  to  evade 
contracts ;  nor  does  the  most  advanced  advocate  of  laissez 
faire  propose  that  breach  of  contract  shall  be  left  to  be  pun- 
ished by  natural  causes — that  is,  by  the  loss  of  business  repu- 
tation, by  the  withdrawal  of  confidence,  or  by  public  repro- 
bation. But  if  exactitude  of  performance  may  be  enforced 
by  law  without  any  interference  with  industrial  freedom, 
why,  pray,  may  not  precision  in  terms  be  required  by  the 
law,  as  the  very  first  condition  of  a  due  and  just  enforcement 
of  contracts  ?  Precision  in  terms  is,  however,  manifestly 
incompatible,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case,  with  truck ; 
for  if  the  employer  says  to  the  laborer,  "  I  will  pay  you  for 
your  work  twenty  shillings  a  week,  but  you  shall  take  it 
in  commodities  at  my  prices,"  he  does  not  in  fact  agree 
how  much  he  will  pay  the  laborer ;  the  use  of  the  term 
twenty  shillings  becomes  purely  deceptive :  it  may  mean 
more  or  less  according  as  the  employer  chooses  to  fix  his 
prices  at  the  time ;  the  laborer  can  not  tell  what  his  wages 
really  are ;  the  law  can  not  tell,  and  therefore  can  not  enforce 

1  Fawcett's  Speeches,  p.  130. 


TRUCK  AND  LAISSEZ  FAIRS.  337 

the  laborer's  right  if  litigated.1  Perhaps  we  can  not  say  that 
precision  in  terms  is  incompatible  with  the  very  nature  of 
the  system  of  machine  rents;  but  there  is  ample  evidence 
to  prove  that  it  has  been  so  in  fact,  and  therefore  the  law, 
which  is  bound  to  enforce  the  contract,  may  justly  demand 
that  the  contract  shall  not  contain  an  element  unsuscep- 
tible of  exact  determination.  This  is  not  interference 
with  freedom  of  contract,  but  with  looseness  and  uncer- 
tainty of  contract,  or  with  the  power  of  one  party  to  a 
contract  to  break,  evade,  or  pervert  its  terms. 

But  I  am  not  anxious  to  reconcile  the  prohibition  of 
truck  and  machine  rents  with  laissez  faire.  The  autho- 
rity accorded  to  that  precept  is  not,  in  my  opinion,  to  be 
justified  on  strictly  economical  principles. 

We  have  previously  (p.  168-9)  discussed  the  principles 
on  which  it  should  be  judged  whether  a  law  prohibitive  or 
regulative  in  form  really  impairs  competition,  and  pre- 
vents the  resort  of  labor  to  its  market.  It  was  there  seen 
that  such  a  measure,  though  unquestionably  obstructive 
as  against  a  supposed  pre-existing  condition  of  perfect 
practical  freedom,  might,  by  removing  important  moral 
or  intellectual  obstacles  to  free  action,  which  actually  exist 
in  human  society  as  it  is,  have  the  effect  to  promote,  and 
not  retard,  industrial  movement. 

Now,  let  us  apply  this  principle  to  a  proposed  law  in  re- 
gulation or  restraint  of  truck.  It  is,  say  Mr.  Bright  and 
Prof.  Fawcett,  an  interference  with  freedom  of  contract 
and  an  obstruction  to  trade,  and  therefore  mischievous — 


1  For  instance,  suppose  in  a  truck  establishment  a  workman  to  die 
having  undisputed  claim  son  the  employer,  for  work  done,  to  the  nomi- 
nal amount  of  100  shillings  :  what  amount  would  his  widow  he  en- 
titled to  recover  in  money  at  law,  or  would  the  employer  be  entitled  to 
pay  the  debt  into  court  in  groceries  and  provisions,  in  quantities 
and  at  prices  to  suit  himself  ?  If  the  man  had  lived,  the  100  shillings 
would  have  been  paid,  wholly  or  in  part,  in  truck.  His  death  certainly 
does  not  change  the  nature  of  his  claim  ;  yet  is  it  conceivable  that  a 
court  should  award  a  payment  in  kind  ? 


338  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

laissez  faire,  laissez  passer.  But  is  it  really  or  only  form- 
ally obstructive  ?  There  will  not  be  absolute  freedom  of 
movement  with  it.  Granted.  But  is  there  absolute  free- 
dom of  movement  without  it  ?  Assuredly  not.  Shall 
not,  then,  the  question  be,  whether  there  will  be  more 
freedom  with  or  without  such  a  law  ? 

Now,  if  we  ask  the  question  respecting  truck  and  frame- 
rents  in  England  as  they  were  in  the  first  half  of  the  cen- 
tury, it  must,  I  think,  be  answered  that  interference  with 
the  formal  freedom  of  contract  in  these  particulars  served 
to  enhance,  in  a  most  important  degree,  the  substantial 
freedom  of  movement  among  the  laboring  classes.  The 
laborer's  practical  ability  to  seek  his  best  market  is  made 
up  of  a  material  element — the  means  of  transportation  and 
present  subsistence — and  of  intellectual  and  moral  elements 
quite  as  essential,  the  knowledge  of  the  comparative  ad- 
vantages of  the  different  occupations  and  locations  offering 
themselves,  and  the  courage  to  break  away  from  place  and 
custom  to  seek  his  fortune  elsewhere.  Ignorance  and  fear 
keep  far  more  men  in  a  miserable  lot  than  does  the  sheer 
physical  difficulty  of  getting  from  place  to  place,  and  sus- 
taining life  meanwhile. 

At  the  laborer's  knowledge  of  the  comparative  advan- 
tages of  different  occupations  and  locations,  the  truck 
and  machine-rent  systems  struck  a  deadly  blow.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  inevitable  difficulties  in  determining  the  real 
wages  of  labor,  which  were  detailed  in  Chapter  II.,  this 
system  introduced  a  new  and  most  hopeless  element  of  un- 
certainty. The  laborer's  wages,  paid  nominally  in  money, 
were  to  be  converted  into  commodities  for  his  consump- 
tion, by  an  illicit  process,  at  rates  governed  by  the  pleasure 
of  the  individual  employer  at  the  particular  time.  The 
truck  system  was  maintained  for  the  purpose  chiefly,  as 
was  admitted,  of  enabling  the  employers  to  "  sweat"  their 
laborers'  wages,  as  counterfeiters  "  sweat"  the  coin  of  the 
realm.  It  was  claimed  that  in  this  way  employers  might 
make  themselves  good,  if  the  nominal  wages  they  were 


TRUCK  BLINDFOLDS  THE  LABORER.  339 

paying  were  too  high,  more  easily  than  they  could  obtain 
a  reduction  in  the  nominal  wages  themselves.  Moreover, 
the  degree  to  which  wages  should  be  thus  reduced  would 
depend  upon  the  rapacity  or  the  necessities  of  individual 
employers,  and  also  upon  the  state  of  manufacture  and 
trade.1  The  great  flexibility  of  these  charges  was  univer- 
sally admitted ;  and,  indeed,  the  readiness  with  which 
they  could  be  adapted,  in  form  and  degree,  to  the  times 
and  exigencies  of  the  master's  business  was  made  one  of 
the  chief  recommendations. 

If  workmen  are  to  seek  their  own  interests,  they  must 
know  them.  Every  thing  that  tends  to  simplify  wages 
makes  it  easier  for  the  laborer  to  dispose  of  his  service  to 
the  highest  advantage.  Every  thing  that  tends  to  compli- 
cate wages  puts  the  laborer  at  disadvantage.  A  system 
of  gross  wages,  with  deductions  "regulated  by  no  fixed 
rule  or  principle  whatever"  (Muggeridge),  varying  with 
times  and  places,  and,  as  Sir  A.  Alison  admits,  varying 
with  the  state  of  trade  and  the  disposition  of  employers, 
makes  it  impossible  for  the  most  enlightened  workman  to 
act  intelligently  respecting  his  interests,  while  the  unedu- 
cated workman  loses  his  reckoning  completely  :  his  senses 
are  deceived,  and  he  is  put  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  the  ex- 
tortioner.3 

But  it  is  said  the  workman  may  not,  indeed,  be  able 
to  compute  with  exactness  his  net  wages  and  those  of  his 
fellows,  through  all  this  system  of  allowances  and  deduc- 
tions and  payments  in  kind ;  but  he  surely  can  appreciate 
the  result  so  far  as  his  own  comfort  and  well-being  are 

1  See  Sir  A.  Alison's  remarkable  admissions  on  this  point,  quoted  in 
note  to  page  333. 

5  "  This  is  a  great  oppression,"  quoth  Arthur  Young.  "  Farmers  and 
gentlemen  keeping  accounts  with  the  poor  is  a  great  abuse.  So  many 
days'  work  for  a  cabin,  so  many  for  a  potato- garden,  so  many  for  keep- 
ing a  horse,  and  so  many  for  a  cow,  are  clear  accounts  which  a  poor 
man  can  understand  well  ;  but  further  it  ought  not  to  go, — and  when 
he  has  worked  out  what  he  has  of  this  sort,  the  rest  of  his  work  ought 
punctually  to  be  paid  him  every  Saturday  night." — Pinkerton,  iii.  815. 


340  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

concerned ;  he  surely  knows  whether  he  is  well  off  or 
not ;  and  if  he  feels  himself  wronged,  he  will  seek  a  bet- 
ter employer.  But  how,  I  ask,  is  he  to  judge  in  ad- 
vance, under  such  a  system  of  combined  truck  and  ma- 
chine rents  as  oppressed  the  framework-knitters  of  Eng- 
land fifty  years  ago,  whether  his  condition  would  be  more 
tolerable  under  another  master  or  in  another  place? 
Suppose  him  to  have  the  rare  intelligence  and  enter 
prise  to  ascertain  the  gross  wages  paid  by  other  employers, 
perhaps  in  distant  localities,  and  to  find  some  more 
favorable  than  his  own,  how  can  he  have  the  slightest  as- 
surance that  greater  severity  in  the  administration  of  the 
system  of  stoppages  and  deductions,  and  greater  greed  in 
pursuing  the  profits  of  truck,  might  not  make  the  dif- 
ference, and  perchance  more  than  the  difference,  in  nomi- 
nal rates  ?  He  can  not  tell  until  he  has  tried,  and  how 
often  would  a  workman,  on  such  a  narrow  margin  of  liv- 
ing, and  it  may  be  with  a  family,  be  able  to  change  em- 
ployers and  shift  his  place  in  order  to  better  his  lot  ? 
How  surely  would  he,  after  one  or  two  bitter  disap- 
pointments, relinquish  the  effort,  and  sink  without  a  strug- 
gle into  his  miserable  place,  getting  what  wages  he  could, 
and  taking  for  them  what  he  might,  at  "the  master's 
store."  The  fact  is,  the  system  of  truck  and  machine 
rents,  as  administered  in  England  in  the  early  part  of  the 
century,  completely  blindfolded  the  workman,  and  left 
him  to  grope  about  in  search  of  his  true  interest,  in  peril 
of  pitfalls  and  quagmires,  or,  as  was  most  likely,  to  sub- 
mit in  sullen  despair  to  every  indignity  and  injury  of  the 
position  in  which  he  found  himself. 

Surely,  then,  we  are  entitled  to  say  that  laws  in  re- 
straint of  these  practices  differ  from  those  other  laws  af- 
fecting labor  which  have  been  described  in  this  chapter, 
in  the  one  all-important  particular,  that  the  latter  were 
intended  to  diminish  that  mobility  by  which  laborers 
could  seek  their  best  market,  while  the  former  have  the 
effect  to  make  competition  more  easy  and  certain. 


18  TRUCK  EVER  JUSTIFIABLE?  341 

Is  truck,  then,  always  subject  to  economical  censure  ? 
I  answer,  No.  Truck  is  a  form  of  barter  ;  and  he  would 
be  a  bold  man  who  should  say  that  barter  is  always  and 
everywhere  prejudicial.  When  truck  arises  naturally,  is 
compatible  with  the  general  usages  of  exchange,  and  is 
maintained  in  good  faith  by  common  consent,  it  may  not 
only  be  unobjectionable  but  highly  advantageous  to  all 
classes.1  When,  however,  truck  is  forced  upon  a  body  of 
impoverished  and  ignorant  workmen  against  the  general 
usages  of  exchange,  and  maintained  by  intimidation  as 
the  means  of  "  sweating"  their  wages,  and  keeping  them 
down  to  the  barest  subsistence  and  under  an  incapacity  to 
migrate,  then  truck  becomes  a  horrid  wrong  and  outrage. 
This  varying  aspect  of  truck,  according  to  the  circum- 
stances and  character  of  the  community  among  which  it  is 
introduced,  exemplifies  the  futility  of  setting  up  as  economi- 
cal principles  what  are  in  truth  mere  rules  of  expediency. 

Thus,  if  barter  be  the  general  condition  of  exchanges 
in  a  new  community,  as  it  ordinarily  is  in  the  scarcity  of 
currency,  we  may  fairly  say  that  it  constitutes  no  special 
hardship  to  the  laboring  classes  that  they  have  to  receive 
their  wages  in  kind.  Doubtless,  in  the  further  develop- 
ment of  society  and  industry,  the  introduction  of  money 
payments  in  such  a  community  will  prove  a  real  and 
great  industrial  advantage  to  all  classes.  Doubtless,  also, 
the  wages  class,  as  presumably  the  poorest  class,  and  that, 
also,  the  members  of  which  have  least  time  and  oppor- 
tunity for  rendering  the  commodities  they  may  chance  to 
receive  in  payment,  into  the  commodities  they  desire  to 
consume,  would  be  most  helped  by  such  an  advance. 

1  M.  Ducarre's  report  notices  with  approbation  the  attempt  of  tha 
Orleans  Railway  Company  to  supply  their  14,000  employees  with  food 
and  clothing.  The  results  seem  to  show  that  the  workmen  thus  ob- 
tained their  supplies  thirty  per  cent  cheaper  than  they  could  have 
done  at  the  shops.  There  is  no  reason  why  such  enterprises  should 
not  be  carried  out  to  a  much  greater  extent,  to  the  highest  advantage 
of  employers  and  workmen,  and  with  general  consent. 


342  THE  WAGE 8  QUESTION. 

Yet,  prior  to  that  consummation,  the  wages  class,  or  the 
economist  speaking  for  them,  could  scarcely  make  com- 
plaint that  they  were  obliged  to  share  in  the  general  in- 
convenience, even  though,  from  their  industrial  position, 
they  might  feel  it  more  severely  than  others  ;  or  demand 
that  exemption  from  truck  be  secured  them  by  law.  In- 
deed, in  such  a  general  condition  of  exchange,  it  is  quite 
conceivable  that  a  class  which  should  be  enabled  to  en- 
force money  payments  to  itself  might  thus  secure  an  un^ 
due  advantage  which  would  be  resented  by  others  as  ob- 
tained at  their  expense.  An  amusing  illustration  of  this 
is  furnished  by  Gov.  "Winthrop  in  his  History  of  New-Eng- 
land, as  follows : 

"  One  Richard  ,  servant  to  one Williams,  of 

Dorchester,  being  come  out  of  service,  fell  to  work  at  his 
own  hand,  and  took  great  wages  above  others,  and  would 
not  work  but  for  ready  money.  By  this  means,  in  a  year 
or  a  little  more,  he  had  scraped  together  about  twenty- 
five  pounds,  and  then  returned,  with  his  prey,  into  Eng- 
land, speaking  evil  of  the  country  by  the  way,"  etc.,  etc. 
(Yol.  ii.  98,  99.)  The  good  governor  notes  with  apparent 
gusto  the  fact  that  he  was  met  by  the  cavaliers  and  eased 
of  his  money — his  prey — on  his  arrival. 

But  if  we  come,  now,  to  consider  a  state  of  industrial 
society  in  which  exchanges  are  generally  effected  through 
the  use  of  money,  and  inquire  as  to  the  results  to  a  single 
class  of  the  community  of  being  reduced,  through  some 
force  operating  upon  them  when  in  a  position  of  disad- 
vantage, to  accept  payment  for  their  services  in  commodi- 
ties1 instead  of  currency,  those,  at  least,  who  discard  the 


1  Clearly  the  evil,  if  there  is  any  evil  in  the  system,  will  be  some- 
what according  to  the  variety  of  the  articles  thus  forced  upon  the  la- 
borer. The  greater  that  variety  the  greater  his  disadvantage.  One  of 
the  arguments  against  abolishing  or  abating  agricultural  truck  has 
been  that  the  arrangement  was  generally  restricted  to  "  one,  two,  or 
three  distinct  things." — Testimony  of  Mr.  Tremenheere  before  the 
Committee  of  1854.  Report,  p.  102. 


HOW  TRUCK  MAT  BE  A  HARDSHIP.  343 

theory  of  diffusion  can  easily  see  that  wrong  amounting 
to  robbery  might  be  wrought  by  this  means.  To  deny  to 
one  class  the  advantage  they  would  naturally  derive  from 
the  introduction  of  a  universal  "  standard  of  value  and 
medium  of  exchange,"  while  allowing  it  to  the  classes 
with  which  that  single  class  is  to  compete  for  the  posses- 
sion of  wealth,  would  be  not  unlike  prohibiting  to  one 
merchant  the  use  of  the  railway,  and  sending  him  back  to 
the  stage-coach,  while  his  competitors  were  permitted  to 
use  the  telegraph  and  the  steam-car.  So  long  as  the  coach 
was  common  to  all,  none  had  equitable  cause  of  complaint 
of  the  want  of  a  better  means  of  transportation.  The  hard- 
ship, such  as  it  was,  lay  in  the  constitution  of  things. 
"When  the  steam -car  and  telegraph  came,  they  did  not  bene- 
fit all  alike  ;  on  the  contrary,  they  tended  to  inequality  ;l 
to  make  the  great  greater,  the  small,  by  comparison  at  least, 
smaller,  yet  no  one  could  rightfully  charge  blame  in  that  he 
received  less  than  others  of  the  great  addition  to  human 
well-being.  It  would  be  quite  another  thing,  however, 
were  one  individual  or  class  to  be  prohibited  from  par- 
ticipating, in  his  measure,  in  what  should  be  the  gain  of 
all.  This  would  be  ground  for  complaint ;  this  would 
be  gross,  palpable  injustice.  And  such  a  wrong  was  that 
truck  against  which  the  statute  of  1st  and  2d  William  IY. 
was  levelled.  Truck  prevailed,  not  because  it  consisted  with 
the  general  system  of  exchange  in  the  country  at  the  time, 
not  because  it  was  for  the  convenience  of  both  parties, 
not  from  any  scarcity  of  currency  to  allow  cash  pay- 
ments, but,  in  the  vast  majority  of  instances,  it  had  been 
forced2  upon  the  working  classes  simply  and  solely  be- 

1  The  effects  of   railways  in  taking  the  life  out  of  small  country 
towns,  and  drawing  trade  and  manufactures  to  junctions  and  termini, 
are  too  familiar  to  need  illustration. 

2  In  some  cases  even  the  pretence  of  adapting  the  commodities,  in 
which  the  laborer  was  paid,  to  his  wants  was  abandoned,  and  the  la- 
borer was  paid  in  whatever  was  most  convenient  to  the  employer. 
E violence  was  given  before  the  Committee  of  1854  that  workmen  were 


344  T8E  WAGES  QUESTION. 

cause  it  enabled  the  employers  to  add  the  profits  of  trade 
to  the  profits  of  manufacture ;  because  it  kept  the  laborers 
always  poor  and  in  debt,  and  diminished  the  ease,  or  prac- 
tically destroyed  the  possibility,  of  migration. 

sometimes  forced  to  receive  such  an  excess  of  flour,  for  instance,  as  to 
have  to  pay  their  rent  in  this  article,  of  course  at  inconvenience  and 
with  a  loss.  (Report,  p.  6.) 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

WHAT     MAY     HELP     THE    WAGES    CLASS    IN    ITS    COMPETITION 
FOB   THE   PRODUCTS   OF   INDUSTRY. 

IN  Chapter  III.  were  set  forth  certain  causes  which  go 
to  heighten  the  efficiency  of  labor  and  increase  the  product 
of  industry.  Under  the  present  title  I  shall  have  occasion 
to  speak  of  causes,  some  of  them  the  same,  as  operating  to 
give  the  wage-laborer  a  larger  share  of  that  product,  with- 
out reference  to  its  absolute  amount. 

Bearing  in  mind  still  that  it  is  competition  in  the  full 
sense  of  that  word,  involving  as  it  does  the  strong  desire 
and  the  persistent  effort  to  buy  in  the  cheapest  and  sell  in 
the  dearest  market,  which  alone  is  needed  to  give  the 
wages  class  the  highest  remuneration  which  the  existing 
conditions  of  industry  will  allow,  we  can  not  find  difficulty 
in  enumerating  the  principal  helps  to  this  end.1  These  are : 

I.  Frugality.  All  capital  is  the  result  of  saving ; 
and  the  frugality  of  the  working  classes,  contributing  to 
the  increase  of  the  wealth  available  for  the  purposes  of 
industry,  secures  indirectly  an  increase  of  production. 

1  Mr.  Mill  says  :  "  When  the  object  is  to  raise  the  permanent  condi- 
tion of  a  people,  small  means  do  not  merely  produce  small  effects,  they 
produce  no  effect  at  all."  (Pol.  Econ.,  i.  459.)  The  remark  is  just,  but 
is  perhaps  liable  to  be  misunderstood.  Causes  which,  when  contem- 
plated as  operating  in  a  given  moment,  appear  so  small  as  to  be  incon- 
siderable, may,  if  they  operate  continuously  in  any  direction,  produce 
great  effects  ;  but  then  such  causes  can  not,  in  a  philosophical  view,  be 
considered  small. 


346  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

But  we  have  here  only  to  do  with  the  fact  that,  without 
reference  to  any  increase  of  production,  the  workman's 
frugality  gives  him  a  distinct  advantage,  rendering  com- 
petition on  his  side,  in  one  degree,  more  effective.  ~No 
matter  how  clearly  workingmen  may  discern  their  interest 
in  a  prompt  resort  to  another  market,  whether  that  im- 
ply a  change  of  occupation  or  of  place,  or  both,  without 
some  savings  out  of  their  past  earnings  they  must  e'en 
say,  with  the  "  Third  Citizen"  in  Coriolanus,  "  We  have 
the  power  in  ourselves  to  do  it ;  but  it  is  a  power  that  we 
have  no  power  to  do."  No  human  thought  can  distin- 
guish the  several  parts  of  ignorance  and  of  penury  in  the 
immobility  of  agricultural  labor  in  the  West  of  England  : 
but  it  can  not  be  doubted  that  the  poverty  which  has 
existed  among  that  class  since  the  Napoleonic  wars  has 
contributed  largely  to  the  miserable  result.  Their  scanty 
earnings  have  rendered  it  extremely  difficult  for  them  to 
make  any  savings  out  of  their  wages  ;  the  lack  of  savings 
has  placed  them  at  the  mercy  of  their  employers  by  ren- 
dering it  extremely  difficult  for  them  to  escape  to  locali- 
ties offering  superior  inducements.  Prof.  Fawcett,  writ- 
ing from  Salisbury  in  1873  or  '4,  says  of  the  agricultural 
laborers  of  that  section  :  "  They  are  so  poor  that  it  is  ab- 
solutely impossible  for  many  of  them  to  pay  the  expense 
of  removing  even  to  a  neighboring  county."  '  I  have  al- 
ready cited  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Muggeridge8  respecting 
the  removal  of  large  numbers  from  the  south  and  west  of 
England  at  the  public  expense,  by  which  persons  who  had 
actually  been  supported  as  paupers  were  immediately 
brought  to  a  condition  of  comfortable  self-support.  In 
some  rare  instances  this  removal  of  laborers  has  been  ef- 
fected by  the  enterprise  of  private  employers.  Thus,  at 
the  meeting  of  the  Social  Science  Association  in  1874,  Mr. 
C.  M.  Palmer,  of  Newcastle,  one  of  the  largest  employers 

1  Correspondence  of  the  Doily  News. 
8  P.  185. 


FRUGALITY  AFFECTS   WAGES.  347 

in  England,  stated  that  some  years  previously,  when  there 
was  great  distress  in  Cornwall,  he  had  sent  an  agent  to 
collect  laborers,  paying  him  so  much  for  each  man  re- 
cruited, offering  minimum  wages  until  the  men  should 
become  instructed  in  mining,  one  half  the  cost  of  trans- 
portation to  be  ultimately  deducted  from  their  wages. 
Mr.  Palmer  deemed  that  the  enterprise  had  been  very 
prosperous  both  in  his  own  interest  and  in  that  of  the  la- 
borers. The  philanthropic  endeavors  of  Canon  Girdle- 
stone  in  securing  the  removal  of  laborers  -from  the  crowd- 
ed districts  have  also  been  alluded  to.  But  whether  such 
schemes  are  undertaken  by  government,  by  business  en- 
terprise, or  by  private  charity,  they  are  almost  sure  to  be 
successful,  if  at  all,  in  some  lower  degree  than  where  the 
laborer  is  furnished  with  means  of  his  own  earning  and  sav- 
ing, and  undertakes  his  own  removal.  In  strong  contrast 
with  the  helpless  condition  of  the  agricultural  laborers  of 
the  south  and  west,  Prof.  Rogers  notes  the  independence 
of  the  laborers  of  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland,  of 
whom  it  is  reported  that  they  "  never  allow  themselves  to 
be  destitute  of  such  a  sum  of  money  as  will  enable  them 
to  emigrate  in  case  the  ordinary  rate  of  wages  shows  signs 
of  yielding  to  the  pressure  for  employment."  * 

On  men  thus  provided,  the  casualties  of  production  will 
work  small  permanent  injury.  Their  reserves  enable 
them  to  tide  over  any  commercial  disaster,  and  the  return 
of  prosperity  finds  their  efficiency  unimpaired.  If,  on  the 

1  Pol.  Econ.,  pp.  101,  102.  The  savings-banks  statistics  bear  out  this 
assertion  respecting  the  laboring  classes  of  these  counties.  By  the 
report  of  the  Penrith  Branch  of  the  Carlisle  Savings-Bank,  it  appears 
that  the  total  amount  due  to  260  male  farm- servants  was  £9259 
9s.  5d. ;  to  240  female  farm-servants,  £7904.  8s.  Qd.  Instances  are  given 
of  £200,  £300,  or  even  £500  having  been  accumulated  by  a  single  per- 
son. (Second  Report  (1869)  of  the  Commission  of  1867  on  the  Employ- 
ment of  Children  in  Agriculture,  p.  141.) 

Sir  Frederick  Eden  in  his  "  History  of  the  Poor"  has  preserved  some 
remarkable  instances  of  considerable  accumulations  out  of  earnings.  (I. 
495.  496,  note.) 


348  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

other  hand,  the  steady  decline  of  industry  in  their  section, 
under  any  general  or  special  cause,  imposes  on  them  the 
necessity  of  migration,  they  can  go  at  the  best  time  and  in 
the  best  way.  Thus  we  see  that  frugality  on  the  part  of 
the  working  classes  goes  far  to  supply  that  condition  on 
which  competition  will  secure  to  them  absolutely  the  high- 
est wages  which  the  existing  conditions  of  industry  allow. 
"  Wages,"  says  Mr.  Mill,  "  are  likely  to  be  high  where  none 
are  compelled  by  necessity  to  sell  their  labor."  1 

But  while  frugality  is  thus  a  condition  of  great  impor- 
tance  in  securing  a  beneficent  distribution  of  the  product 
of  industry,  we  are  compelled  to  acknowledge  that  the 
condition  of  the  wage-laborer  is  not  conducive  to  the  devel- 
opment of  this  quality.  We  saw a  that  he  must,  human 
nature  being  what  it  is,  be  somewhat  less  industrious  than 
the  person  who  works  on  his  own  account ;  he  is  also  likely 
to  be  less  frugal.  Take  the  case  of  the  "  peasant  proprie- 
tor" of  land.  Is  there  an  hour  of  the  day  left,  there  is 
always  something  to  be  done  ;  the  land  is  ever  crying  out 
for  labor.  Has  he  a  few  shillings  to  spare  at  the  end  of 
the  month,  there  is  always  something  connected  with  the 
land  which  demands  its  investment.  Whether  it  be  work 
on  the  growing  crop,  or  the  ditching,  fencing,  and  clear- 
ing of  land,  the  increase  of  live  stock  and  implements,  or 
additions  to  stables  and  barns,  the  small  farmer  has  always 
a  good  use  to  which  to  put  every  hour  of  labor  and  every 
shilling  of  money  which  he  can  command.  After  all,  it  is 
as  Sismondi  said  :  "  The  true  savings-bank  is  the  land." 

With  the  wage-laborer  the  case  is  different.  He  can 
not  reapply  any  portion  of  the  product  of  his  labor  di- 
rectly to  the  subject-matter  of  his  labor,  for  that  is  not 
his.  If  he  would  put  any  portion  of  his  wages  to  a  re. 
productive  use,  he  must  seek  out  some  borrower,  and 
the  amount  he  has  to  lend  being  small,  this  borrower  must 


1  Pol.  Econ.,  i.  442. 
8  P.  74-7. 


INTEMPERANCE  AND   WAGES.  349 

be  the  bank,  which  will  lend  the  money  out,  he  knows 
not  when,  he  knows  not  where.  This  is  a  very  cold- 
blooded affair  compared  with  the  application  of  earnings 
to  the  land  by  the  proprietor  thereof,  who  works  over 
it  and  lives  upon  it,  who  feels  that  it  is  all  his,  and  shall 
be  his  children's  after  him.  Neither  the  imagination  nor 
the  affections  are  addressed  very  powerfully  by  the  sav- 
ings-bank. There  is,  besides,  some  delay  involved  in  a 
deposit,  which,  however  slight,  defeats  many  a  good  reso- 
lution and  brings  many  a  half-consecrated  sixpence  to  the 
grocery  or  the  bar-room. 

I  have  named  in  the  last  word  the  great  foe  to  frugality 
in  the  working  classes.  Wholly  aside  from  the  perversion 
of  instincts,  the  loss  of  laboring  power,  and  the  actual  vice 
and  crime  resulting  from  drunkenness,  the  waste  of  wealth 
shown  by  the  statistics  of  the  consumption  of  wine,  beer, 
and  liquors  by  the  working-classes  is  appalling. 

I  had  occasion  in  the  preceding  chapter  to  refer  to  the 
payment  of  beer  and  cider  as  a  part  of  agricultural  wages 
in  England.  The  amount  of  money  actually  received  and 
spent  for  these  and  stronger  drinks  is  estimated,  on  respect- 
able authority ,  as  follows  i1 1869,  £113,464,874 ;  1871,  £118, 
906,066  ;  1873,  £140,014,712.  The  author  of  this  compu- 
tation proceeds  to  estimate  the  cost  of  the  bread  consumed 
annually  by  the  people  of  England  at  £2 12-5.  6d.  per  head  ; 
the  cost  of  tea,  coffee,  sugar,  rice,  and  cocoa  consumed,  at 
£1. 10«.  9<$.  per  head :  making  altogether  an  average  expend- 
iture for  these  articles  of  £4.  7s.  3d.,  against  an  expenditure 
of  £4. 7s.  %d.  for  alcoholic  drinks,  on  the  basis  of  1873.  At 
this  rate,  six  years'  expenditure  would  amount  to  enough  to 
pay  the  national  debt,  or  to  build  a  house  worth  £150  for 
every  family  in  the  kingdom.  There  may  be  some  exag- 
geration in  these  estimates  ;  and  it  is  to  be  considered  that 
the  expenditure  of  the  higher  classes  on  this  account  is 
more  than  proportional ;  yet  one  can  not  set  the  cost  of 

1  The  Temperance  Reformation  and  the  Christian  Church,  pp.  112, 113. 


350  TEE  WAGES  QUESTI01/. 

wines,  ales,  and  liquors  consumed  by  the  wage-laboring 
classes  of  Great  Britain  lower  than  £100,000,000  per 
annum.  Mr.  G.  R.  Porter,  in  a  paper  read  before  the 
Statistical  Society,  adopted  the  estimate  that  one -half  the 
income  of  workingmen  earning  between  ten  and  fifteen 
shillings  a  week  was  spent  by  them  on  objects  in  which 
other  members  of  the  family  had  no  share ;  while  the 
proportion  thus  selfishly  devoted  by  higher  paid  and  pre- 
sumedly more  temperate  artisans  earning  from  twenty  to 
thirty  shillings,  not  infrequently  reached  one  third.1 

Yet,  in  spite  of  strong  and  urgent  tendencies  to  dissipa- 
tion and  extravagance  among  the  manual-labor  classes,  the 
statistics  of  the  savings-banks  show  a  steady  growth  of  the 
principle  of  frugality,  the  total  deposits  in  1873  reaching 
$312,000,000.  The  deposits  in  savings-banks  throughout  all 
Europe,2  exclusive  of  Russia 3  and  Turkey,  are  estimated, 
in  a  report  of  M.  Normandie  to  the  French  National  As- 
sembly in  1875,  at  a  total  of  $1,180,000,000. 

1  Statistical  Journal,  xiii.  364. 

Mr.  Baines  states  that  nineteen-twentieths  of  the  occupants  of  cottages 
in  Leeds  pay  their  rent  weekly,  and  could  not  be  trusted  longer.  (Statis- 
ticalJournal,  xxii.  136, 138.)  The  plan  of  Monday-morning  payments  has 
been  widely  urged  as  a  simple,  practical  measure  in  aid  of  the  laborer's 
instincts  of  frugality.  French  laborers  find  less  difficulty  in  carrying 
their  earnings  past  the  cabaret. 

Mr.  Brassey  relates  that  during  the  construction  of  the  Paris  and 
Rouen  Railway,  the  Frenchmen  employed  were,  at  their  own  request, 
paid  only  once  a  month.  (Work  and  Wages,  p.  17.) 

Mr.  McCulloch  in  his  Commercial  Dictionary  (p.  478)  argues  strenu- 
ously that  the  State  should  refuse  to  protect  small  debts,  with  a  view 
to  promote  frugality  on  the  part  of  the  working-classes. 

3  The  fullest  body  of  information  relating  to  banks  of  saving  is  to 
be  found  in  a  recent  report  by  Prof.  Louis  Bodio,  the  accomplished 
chief  of  the  Italian  Bureau  of  Statistics.  "Casse  di  Risparmio  in 
Italia,  ed  all'  estero." 

3  Russia,  however,  has  her  system  of  savings-banks,  numbering  six- 
ty-two, with  deposits  to  the  amount  of  four  and  a  half  million  roubles, 
in  the  name  of  seventy  thousand  depositors.  In  contrast  with  these 
facts,  we  find  in  little  Switzerland  not  less  than  353,855  depositors,  or 
one  in  every  seven  of  the  population.  In  Denmark  the  proportion  ia 
one  to  eight  and  a  half. 


THE  SAVINGS  OF  THE  WAGES  CLASS.  351 

On  the  Continent  of  Europe  the  amount  of  deposits  in 
savings-banks  represents  but  a  fraction  of  the  accumula- 
tions of  the  working  classes.  The  passion  of  the  common 
people  for  acquiring  land  leads  to  the  continuous  applica- 
tion of  circulating  capital  to  the  purchase  of  this  species  of 
property,1  while  the  various  classes  of  credit  institutions 
facilitate  the  erection  of  workingmen's  houses.  If  it  be 
asked  how  the  acquisition  of  real  property  by  the  work- 
ing classes  consists  with  the  mobility  of  labor  which  is  so 
much  to  be  desired,  I  answer,  one  need  have  no  fear  that 
the  true  mobility  of  labor  will  be  impaired  at  all  by  any 
form  which  the  savings  of  the  working  classes  may  take ; 
that  the  virtues"  which  are  required  for  the  exercise  of 
frugality,  and  which  the  exercise  of  frugality  strengthens, 
afford  the  best  security  for  all  needed  movement  of  labor 
at  the  right  time  and  in  the  right  way ;  and  finally,  that 
the  individual  acquisition  of  real  property  is  never  likely 
to  become  so  general  as  not  to  leave  a  considerable  portion 
of  the  members  of  every  trade  without  ties  to  the  soil. 

It  is  quite  another  question  how  the  extensive  acquisi- 
tion of  public  property  by  the  Swiss  communes 2  affects  the 
desired  mobility  of  labor  in  that  country.  It  would 
certainly  appear  at  this  distance  to  be  inexpedient,  as  re- 
quiring an  undue  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  individuals  whom 
the  conditions  of  industry  seem  to  invite  to  other  locali- 
ties. 

The  statistics  of  savings-banks  in  the  United  States  are 
not  to  be  used  with  much  confidence,  for  the  reason  that 
onerous  taxation  has  in  several  States  driven  large 
amounts  of  personal  property,  belonging  to  persons  of 
means,  under  the  protection  of  these  institutions,  which 

1  In  the  Canton  of  Berne,  of  500,000  inhabitants,  the  real  property- 
holders  numbered,  in  1868,  88,670.  (Report  of  Mr.  Gould  on  the  Condi- 
tion of  the  Industrial  Classes,  1871,  p.  670.) 

2 "  The  estimated  value  of  the  property  held  by  the  Swiss  communes 
between  the  years  1863  and  1864,  independently  of  the  Cantons,  may 
be  put  down  at  the  large  sum  of  586.853,077  francs."  (Ibid.) 


352  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

enjoy  a  partial  immunity  from  contribution.  It  is  not  un^ 
usual  to  deposit,  up  to  the  limit  of  the  amount  authorized 
by  law,  in  each  of  a  number  of  banks,  and  still  further  to 
multiply  such  deposits  by  entering  equal  amounts  in  the 
names  of  wife  and  children.1 

Notwithstanding  this,  however,  it  is  evident  that  a  vast 
body  of  wealth  is  held  by  the  laboring  classes  of  the 
United  States  in  movable  form,  in  addition  to  the  sums 
invested  in  houses  and  lands.  In  1873  the  savings-banks  of 
Maine  showed  91,398  separate  accounts,  with  an  aggregate 
deposit  of  $29,550,524;  Ehode  Island,  93,124:  accounts, 
$46,617,183 ;  Massachusetts,  666,229  accounts,  $202,195,- 
344  ;  New-York,  839,472  accounts,  $285,520,085. 

II.  Individual  and  mutual  intelligence  among  the  work- 
ing classes.  The  phrase  mobility  of  labor  is  very  useful 
in  discussions  of  the  questions  of  wages,  as  expressing 
better  than  any  other  the  one  condition  upon  which 
laborers  can  receive  the  highest  remuneration  which  the 
state  of  productive  industry  (their  own  present  efficiency 
being  taken  into  account)  will  allow,  and  the  sole  security 
which  society  can  have  that  the  inevitable  immediate 
effects  of  industrial  pressure  or  disaster  shall  not  become 
permanent.  Yet  there  is  danger  that  the  conception  of 
what  is  involved  in  this  term  will  be  inadequate.  Assum- 
ing the  desire  of  industrial  well-being  to  be  universal,  the 
mobility  of  labor  should  supply  on  the  part  of  the  wages 
class  all  that  is  needed  for  a  perfect  competition ;  and  this 
clearly  requires  something  more  than  legalized  freedom  of 
movement,  something  more,  even,  than  the  possession  of 
the  physical  means  of  transportation  and  subsistence  need- 
ed for  migration.  The  laborer  must  be  in  a  position  to 
discern  where  his  real  interest  lies,  for  to  move  in  any 
other  than  the  right  direction  may  be  more  injurious  than 


1  One  case  has  come  to  my  knowledge  where  a  depositor,  after  ex. 
hausting  the  list  of  his  human  family,  entered  the  maximum  amount 
in  the  name  of  his  dog. 


INTELLIGENCE  AFFECTS  WAGES.  853 

to  abide  in  his  lot,  since  all  movement  implies  loss  of 
force,  and  is  only  to  be  justified  by  the  prospect  of  a 
distinct  gain  in  the  result. 

This  ability  to  discern  where  one's  interest  lies  requires 
two  things,  the  acquisition  of  just  information  and  the 
rejection  of  false  information.  Of  the  former  it  is  not 
necessary  to  speak.  It  is  seen  in  the  mere  mention,  how 
l.irge  is  the  requirement  it  makes  of  the  working  classes ; 
how  slight  the  probability  that  this  requirement  will  be 
completely  filled.  The  second  requirement  is,  among  an 
ignorant  population,  even  more  difficult.  So  prone  to  dis- 
couragement are  men,  especially  men  lacking  in  mental 
training  and  culture ;  so  efficient  is  Rumor  in  her  evil 
office  of  spreading  the  news  of  failure  and  disaster,  that 
the  effects  of  acting  upon  false  information  in  a  single 
instance  may,  with  ignorant  persons,  neutralize  the  most 
substantial  inducements  of  self-interest  in  many  other  in- 
stances. Such  persons  have  little  to  hold  on  to,  or  steady 
their  minds  upon ;  they  generalize  hastily  and  passionate- 
ly, or,  rather,  they  do  not  in  any  true  sense  generalize  at 
all ;  and  after  the  first  shock  to  their  confidence  they  be- 
come absurdly  suspicious. 

Even  in  enterprises  of  less  pith  and  moment,  the  cloud 
of  prejudice,  vague  apprehensions,  and  false  conceits, 
originating  in  ignorance,  obscures  the  view,  in  every  direc- 
tion, of  the  laborer's  true  interest. 

"  Few,"  says  Mr.  Chad  wick,1  "  who  have  not  had  ex- 
perience in  the  administration  of  relief  to  the  destitute  in 
periods  of  wide  distress,  can  be  fully  sensible  of  the  dif- 
ference, in  amount  of  trouble  and  chargeability  to  the 
ratepayers,  between  educated  and  intelligent  and  uneducat- 
ed and  unintelligent  people  of  the  wage-class — the  heavy 
lumpishness  of  the  uneducated,  their  abject  prostration, 
their  liability  to  misconception  and  to  wild  passion,  their 
frequent  moroseness  and  intractability,  and  the  difficulty 

1  Statistical  Journal,  xxviii.  11,  13. 


354  THE   WAGES  QUESTION. 

of  teaching  them,  as  compared  with  the  self-help  of  the 
better  educated,  who  can  write  and  inquire  for  themselves, 
and  find  out  for  themselves  new  outlets  and  sources  of 
productive  employment,  and  who  can  read  for  themselves 
and  act  on  written  or  printed  instructions.  The  really 
well-trained,  educated,  and  intelligent  are  the  best  to  bear 
distress ;  they  are  the  last  to  come  upon  charitable  relief- 
lists,  and  the  first  to  leave  them." 

III.  Sexual  self-restraint.  I  am  not  speaking  here  in  the 
Malthusian  sense  with  reference  to  the  general  supply  of 
labor.  In  Malthusianism  the  average  number  of  children  to 
the  family  is  the  single  consideration  ;  it  matters  not  whether 
each  family  have  four  children,  or  one  family  none,  and  the 
next  eight :  the  supply  of  labor  is  equally  affected.  Again, 
while  in  Malthusianism  the  age  at  which  marriage  shall  be 
contracted  and  children  produced  is  not  a  matter  of  in- 
difference, it  is  only  of  consequence  as  it  affects  the  period 
within  which  population  shall  double.  I  here  adduce  the 
desirableness  of  sexual  self-restraint  on  an  account  which 
is  wholly  additional  to  this — namely,  the  influence  it  must 
exert  upon  the  mobility  of  the  laborer.  We  have  seen 
the  occasion  in  modern  society  for  a  frequent,  one  might 
almost  say  an  incessant,  readjustment  of  population  and 
industry.  It  is  clear,  that  though  the  laborer  can  never 
wholly  escape  from  this  necessity,  it  is  of  peculiar  im- 
portance that  he  should  be  as  disembarrassed  as  possible 
during  the  years  when  he  is  coming  to  find  out  his  own 
powers  and  capabilities,  learning  how  to  work,  and  getting 
into  industrial  relations,  presumably  for  life.  It  is  certain 
that  he  can  make  a  favorable  disposition  of  his  labor  then, 
if  ever ;  that  he  will  never  be  able  afterwards  to  seek  his 
market  with  so  little  of  effort  and  so  little  of  loss. 

It  is,  therefore,  economically  desirable,  without  respect 
to  the  effect  his  earlier  marriage  might  have  on  the 
general  supply  of  labor,  that  at  this  critical  period  his 
mobility  should  be  at  the  maximum.  Of  course,  this 
proposition  does  not  apply  generally  to  communities  in 


EARLY  MARRIAGES  AFFECT  WAGES.  355 

the  condition  of  the  American  colonies  and  the  early 
United  States,  where  labor  was  almost  painfully  deficient, 
and  where  land  was  abundant.  A  young  man  there  could 
scarcely  have  placed  himself  wrong;  and  any  disadvan- 
tage the  impediments  of  a  youthful  marriage  might  have 
occasioned  him  was  amply  compensated  by  the  access  of 
productive  power  which  his  rising  family  soon  brought 
him,  in  a  country  where  the  condition  of  "  diminishing 
returns"  had  not  been  reached.  But  when  settlements 
became  dense  and  production  diversified,  the  necessity  of 
a  precise  adaptation  of  labor  to  industry,  and  a  consequent 
readjustment  of  population,  becomes  urgent,  and  that 
urgency  increases  with  increase  of  numbers  and  diversi- 
fication of  products.  Hence  it  is  that  early  and  improv- 
ident marriages,  such  as  characterize  the  Irish1  at  home 
and  in  foreign  lands,  influence  unfavorably  the  rate  of 
wages,  wholly  besides  their  effect  on  the  general  supply 
of  labor.  The  young  laborer  is  no  longer  free  to  abandon 
the  avocation  his  adaptation  to  which  he  finds  he  has 
wrongly  estimated,  or  the  locality  where  he  finds  himself 
crowded  by  equally  needy  competitors,  and  to  seek  the 
price  of  his  labor  in  a  better  market ;  but,  tied  down  by 
the  cares  of  family,  and  harassed  by  immediate  necessi- 
ties, he  sinks  hopelessly  into  what  he  knows  to  be  the 
wrong  place  for  him. 

But  if  we  turn  our  attention  from  the  fortunes  of 
the  individual  to  those  of  the  whole  wages  class,  we 
shall  see  an  additional  reason,  in  the  interest  of  a  be- 
neficent distribution  of  the  products  of  industry,  for  the 
procrastination  of  marriage.  The  desideratum  is,  we 
have  seen,  to  secure  the  readjustment  of  population  to 
industry.  It  is  clearly  true  that  the  longer  marriage 
is  postponed,  the  larger  the  proportion  of  the  total  labor- 

1  Sir  Archibald  Alison,  writing  of  the  Irish  peasants  in  the  days  be- 
fore the  Famine,  speaks  of  them  as  "almost  always"  marrying  at 
eighteen,  and  not  infrequently  becoming  grandfathers  at  thirty-four. 
(Hist,  of  Europe,  xviii.  5.) 


356  THE  WAGES  QUESTION'. 

ing  population  which  will  be  free,  so  far  as  domestic 
incumbrances  are  concerned,  to  respond  to  economical 
impulses  suggesting  a  change  of  avocation  or  of  residence. 
It  is  not  merely  that,  if  they  go  in  obedience  to  such  sug- 
gestions, they  secure  their  own  highest  remuneration,  but 
they  also  relieve  the  market  in  those  localities  or  occu- 
pations which  they  forsake.  With  the  disposable  element 
thus  increased  by  the  procrastination  of  marriage,  the 
heads  of  families,  those  who,  in  the  words  of  Bacon, 
"  have  given  hostages  to  fortune,"  may  to  a  very  large  ex- 
tent, except  only  in  extraordinary  emergencies,  be  exempt 
from  this  necessity. 

The  average  age  at  which  marriages  are  contracted 
varies  greatly  with  the  industrial  necessities  and  the  social 
habits  of  different  communities.1  In  Belgium,  in  21. IT 
out  of  100  marriages  the  groom  is  under  25  years ;  in  Hol- 
land, 21.42;  in  Sweden,  21.83;  in  Norway,  23.95;  in 
Austria,  28.40 ;  in  France,  29.06  ;  in  Scotland,  41.32  ;  in 
England,  50.95. 

IY.  Legal  regulations  clearly  correspondent  to  infirmi- 
ties in  the  mass  of  laborers,  which  tend  to  defeat  the  real 
freedom  of  choice  and  power  of  movement. 

After  making  all  allowances  for  the  proneness  of  legis- 
latures to  meddle  and  blunder,  and  for  defects  in  ad- 
ministration of  the  law,  it  still  remains  true  that  the 
wages  class  may,  in  exceptional  instances,  be  helped  for- 


1  Marriages  take  place  at  a  very  early  age  in  India.  Mr.  Beverley,  the 
Census  Commissioner,  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  religious  be- 
liefs of  the  people  contribute  to  this  result,  as  it  is  deemed  highly  im- 
portant that  the  burial  rites,  on  which  the  welfare  of  the  soul  after 
death,  according  to  their  faith,  greatly  depends,  should  be  performed 
by  male  offspring.  (Economist,  May  9th,  1874,  p.  555.)  In  Ireland  early 
marriages  have  undoubtedly  been  promoted  by  the  influence  of  the 
priesthood.  (J.  S.  Mill's  Pol.  Econ.  i.  345,  446 ;  Alison's  Hist,  of  Europe, 
xviii.  10 ;  Statistical  Journal,  xxii.  217,  xxiii.  205  ;  Prof.  Senior,  quoted 
in  the  Edinburgh  Review,  October,  1808,  p.  328,  cf.  p.  336.)  In  Eng- 
land Mr.  J.  S.  Mill  charges  that  the  policy  of  the  Tory  party  has  been 
to  encourage  early  marriages.  (Pol.  Econ.,  i.  426.) 


LAWS  PROTECTING  LABOR.  357 

ward  in  an  important  degree  towards  a  real  and  vital  com- 
petition, by  the  exercise  of  the  prohibitory  power  of  the 
State.  During  the  present  century,  says  the  Duke  of 
Argyle,  in  his  Reign  of  Law,  l  "  two  great  discoveries 
have  been  made  in  the  science  of  government :  the  one 
is  the  immense  advantage  of  abolishing  restrictions  upon 
Trade;  the  other  is  the  absolute  necessity  of  imposing 
restrictions  upon  Labor."  There  is  here  no  inconsist- 
ency. I  have  shown  in  a  preceding  chapter  that  those 
economists  who  refuse  to  carry  into  the  department  of 
Distribution  the  rule  of  perfect  freedom  from  restraint 
which  they  accept  in  the  department  of  Exchange,  do  not 
abandon  an  economical  principle,  but  only  leave  behind 
a  practical  rule,  the  conditions  of  which  no  longer  exist. 
The  possible  justification  of  Factory  Acts  and  kindred 
legislation  may  be  thus  briefly  stated.  For  perfect  competi- 
tion in  wage-labor  it  is  required  that  the  employer  and  the 
laborer  shall  each  understand  and  pursue  his  own  true 
permanent  interest.  But  this  requirement  is  never  com- 
pletely fulfilled.  The  employer,  on  his  part,  is  always,  in 
a  higher  or  lower  degree,  unduly  under  the  domination  of 
immediate  purposes.  The  haste  to  be  rich,  which  often 
makes  waste  ;  greed,  which  is  always  unwise ;  parsimony, 
which  disables  from  business  success  many  a  man  who  has 
every  other  qualification,  rendering  him  incapable  of  ever 
taking  a  large  and  liberal  view  of  his  industrial  relations ; 
rivalry,  mutual  jealousy  among  manufacturers  affecting 
the  temper  of  business  and  warping  production  from  its 
best  course — these  passions  and  infirmities  among  employ- 
ers, quickened  at  times  by  stringent  financial  necessities, 
must  more  or  less  make  separation  between  their  seeming 
present  and  their  true  permanent  interest.  Thus  it  be- 
comes possible  that  the  employer  shall  seek  to  crowd  down 
wages,  extend  the  hours  of  work,  quicken  the  movement 
of  machinery,  admit  children  of  tender  age  to  painful  and 

'Pp,  334,  335. 


358  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

protracted  labor,1  scrimp  in  the  conveniences  of  produc- 
tion, and  neglect  the  ventilation  and  sanitary  care  of  his 
shop  or  factory,  all  in  the  effort  to  increase  the  month's 
and  the  year's  profits,  though  such  a  course  is,  in  the  long 
view,  prejudicial  alike  to  himself  and  his  hands.  Perfect 
competition  would  make  the  employer  the  guardian  of  the 
laborer's  interests.  What  sort  of  a  guardian  imperfect 
competition  makes  of  the  employer  unrestrained  by  law 
or  an  active  public  sentiment,  may  be  read  in  the  official  re- 
ports of  Great  Britain,  in  which  the  condition  of  her 
mines  and  mills  and  factories  prior  to  their  legal  regulation 
is  described. 

But  the  failure  of  true  competition  is,  as  has  already 
been  abundantly  shown,  far  greater  on  the  side  of  the 
wages  class,  though  in  this  respect  very  wide  differences 
exist,  due  both  to  the  industrial  quality  of  the  individual 
laborer  and  to  the  nature  of  the  occupation  pursued.  The 
skilled  workman,  receiving  high  wages,  with  an  ample 
margin  of  subsistence,  is  always  fairly  able  to  seek  his  best 
market.  Doubtless  he  fails  in  a  considerable  degree,  at 
times,  for  want  of  apprehension,  or  of  the  spirit  of  enter- 
prise ;  but,  in  the  main,  he  satisfies  the  condition  of  a 
right  distribution.  Even  the  unskilled  and  unintelligent  la- 
borer, in  occupations  involving  no  extensive  subdivision  of 
work  or  expensive  machinery  and  materials,  may  find  his 
place  tardily  and  painfully,  and  make  his  terms,  though  at 
some  loss.  It  is  when  laborers  of  botli  sexes  and  all  ages, 
each  doing  some  special  operation — a  small  part  of  a  great 
work — are  aggregated  in  mills  and  factories  where  costly 
materials  are  consumed  and  complicated  machinery  is  em~ 
ployed,  that  the  control  of  the  individual  over  his  lot  is 
diminished  to  the  minimum.  What  is  the  single  laborer  in 

1  "  Quand  1'enfant  n'est  pas  extenue  par  un  travail  premature",  et 
quand  on  attend  qu'il  ait  les  forces  necessaires  avant  de  1*  astreindre  au 
travail,  une  fois  parvenu  a  1'age  d'homme,  il  est  meilleur  ouvrier,  tra- 
vaille  mieux,  plus  vite  et  produit  davantage." — M.  Wolowski: — Legis- 
lation sur  le  Travail  des  Enfants.  (MM.  Tallon  and  Maurice,  p.  233.) 


ENGLISH  FACTORY  ACTS.  359 

a  cotton-mill  ?  "What  does  his  will  or  wish  stand  for  ?  The 
mill  itself  becomes  one  vast  machine  which  rolls  on  in  its 
appointed  work,  tearing,  crushing,  or  grinding  its  human, 
just  as  relentlessly  as  it  does  its  other,  material.  The 
force  of  discipline  completely  subjects  the  interests  and 
the  objects  of  the  individual  to  the  necessities  of  a  great 
establishment.  Whoever  fails  to  keep  up,  or  faints  by 
the  way,  is  relentlessly  thrown  out.  If  the  wheel  runs  for 
twelve  hours  in  the  day,  every  operative  must  be  in  his 
place  from  the  first  to  the  last  revolution.  If  it  runs  for 
thirteen  hours  or  fourteen,  he  must  still  be  at  his  post.  Per- 
sonality disappears ;  even  the  instinct  of  self-assertion  is 
lost ;  apathy  soon  succeeds  to  ambition  and  hopefulness. 
The  laborer  can  quarrel  no  more  with  the  foul  air  of  his 
'inventilated  factory,  burdened  with  poisons,  than  he  can 
quarrel  with  the  great  wheel  that  turns  below. 

This  helplessness,  this  subjection  to  an  order  which  the 
workman  has  not  established,  and  can  not  in  one  particular 
change,  becomes  more  complete  in  the  case  of  women  and 
children,  while  the  responsibility  of  the  State  therefor 
becomes  more  direct  and  urgent. 

It  is  on  such  considerations  as  these,  that  the  economist 
may,  acting  under  the  fullest  accountability  to  strictly 
economical  principles,  advocate  what  Mr.  Newmarch  calls1 
"  a  sound  system  of  interference  with  the  hours  of  labor." 

Tlie  Factory  legislation  of  England,  the  necessity  and 
economical  justification  of  which  the  Duke  of  Argyle 
has  called  one  of  the  great  discoveries  of  the  century  in 
the  science  of  government,  began  in  1802  with  the  act  of 
42d  George  III.,  limiting  the  hours  of  labor  in  woolen 
and  cotton  mills  and  factories  to  twelve,  exclusive  of 
meal-times,  imposing  many  sanitary  regulations  upon  the 
working  and  sleeping  rooms  of  operatives,  requiring  the 
instruction  of  children  in  letters  for  the  first  four  years  of 
their  apprenticeship,  and  providing  an  official  inspection 

1  Statistical  Journal,  xxiv.  462. 


360  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

of  establishments  for  the  due  execution  of  the  law. 
Additional  legislation  was  had  in  1816  and  1831 ;  and  in 
1833  was  passed  the  important  act  known  as  3d  and  4th 
William  IV.  (c.  103),  which  forbade  night-work  in  the 
case  of  all  persons  under  eighteen  years  of  age,  and  limit- 
ed the  labor  of  such  persons  to  twelve  hours,  inclusive  of 
an  hour  and  a  half  for  meals ;  prohibited  the  employ- 
ment (except  in  silk-mills)  of  children  under  nine  years 
of  age,  while  between  the  ages  of  nine  and  thirteen  the 
hours  were  reduced  to  eight  a  day  (in  silk-mills,  ten) ; 
prescribed  a  certain  number  of  half-holidays  in  the  year, 
and  required  medical  certificates  of  health  on  the  admis- 
sion of  children  to  factory  labor.  The  scope  of  these 
provisions  has  been  extended,  successively,  by  legislation 
in  1844,  1847,  1850,  1853,  1861,  1864,  and  186T,  until 
they  now  embrace  all  persons  engaged  in  processes  inci- 
dental to  the  manufacture  of  textile  fabrics,  with  but  slight 
exception,  and  also  to  the  manufacture  of  earthenware, 
lucifer-matches,  percussion-caps  and  cartridges,  or  in  tlie 
employments  of  paper-staining  and  fustian-cutting. 

The  principle  of  the  English  Factory  Acts  has  been  slow- 
ly extended  over  a  considerable  portion  of  Europe.  Before 
1839  England,  Prussia,  and  Austria  had,  in  greater  or  less 
degree,  controlled  the  labor  of  children,1  though  to  but 
little  effect  in  the  last-named  country,  where  the  day  of 
labor  was  still  cruelly  long,  frequently  reaching  to  fifteen 
hours,  exclusive  of  meals,  and  sometimes  to  seventeen.3 

French  factory  legislation  dates  from  1841.  Bj  the 
act  of  that  year  (March  22d)  children  were  not  to  be  ad- 
mitted to  factories  under  eight  years  of  age.  They  were 
only  to  work  eight  hours  in  the  twenty-four  up  to  twelve 
years,  and  twelve  hours  from  twelve  years  to  sixteen. 
They  were  not  to  work  at  night,  with  a  few  exceptions  in 
the  case  of  children  above  thirteen,  or  to  work  at  all  on 


1  L.  Homer,  Employment  of  Children,  p.  45,  cf.  p.  54. 
9  Ibid,  p.  105. 


EUROPEAN  FACTORY  ACTS.  3G1 

Sundays  or  holidays.  School  attendance  was  required 
up  to  twelve  years.  The  number  of  children  in  1870 
working  subject  to  this  act  was  about  100,000,  nine-tenths 
of  these  being  employed  in  spinning  and  weaving  facto- 
ries.1 May  19th,  1874,  a  new  law  of  much  greater  range 
and  higher  efficiency  was  passed  by  the  National  Assem- 
bly. By  this  act  children  under  ten  years  of  age  can  not 
be  admitted  to  work  in  factories,  mines,  or  shops ;  from 
ten  to  twelve  years  they  can  work  only  in  certain  indus- 
tries to  be  specially  designated  by  a  government  commis- 
sion, and  they  only  work  for  six  hours  in  the  day  ;  from 
twelve  years  onwards  they  are  not  to  work  in  excess  of 
twelve  hours  a  day.  Until  sixteen  years  of  age  they  are 
not  to  work  at  night.  No  child  can  be  admitted  to 
work  in  mines  under  twelve  years,  and  no  female  at 
any  age.  Universal  primary  instruction  is  provided  by 
the  law,  and  a  rigid  inspection  of  all  establishments  in 
which  children  are  employed.8 

In  Belgium  there  has  been  no  legislation  protective  of 
children  since  the  decree  of  1813,  which  prohibited  their 
employment  under  ten  years  of  age  in  mines. 

In  Germany,  by  the  Industrial  Code  of  April  6th,  1869 
(p.  127-132),  the  age  of  admission  to  labor  is  fixed  at 
twelve  years  ;  from  twelve  to  fourteen,  children  can  be  em- 
ployed but  six  hours  a  day  ;  from  fourteen  to  sixteen,  but 
ten  hours,  with  two  intervals  of  rest.  Night-labor  is  pro- 
hibited. School-attendance  and  factory-inspection  are  rig- 
idly enforced. 

In  Switzerland  the  age  of  admission  varies  according 
to  the  character  of  the  industry  pursued  ;  in  some  twelve 
years,  in  others  thirteen,  in  others  fourteen.3 

1  Report  of  Mr.  Malet  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes  of 
France. 

2  For  the  text  of  this  law  see  the  work  published  by  MM.  Tallon 
and  Maurice  in  1875,  Legislation    sur  le  Travail  des  Enfants,  pp. 
445-53. 

3  See  the  work  of  MM.  Tallon  and  Maurice,  p.  24. 


362  THE   WAGES  QUESTION. 

In  Italy  there  are  no  laws  relating  to  the  employment 
of  children  in  factories,  but  children  under  ten  years  are 
not  permitted  to  work  in  mines.1 

In  Sweden,  by  royal  statute  of  June  18th,  1864, 
children  under  twelve  years  are  not  allowed  to  work  in 
factories,  nor  any  person  under  eighteen  years  to  be  em- 
ployed at  night.8 

In  Spain  and  Portugal  no  laws  exist  respecting  the  age 
at  which,  or  the  number  of  hours  in  the  day  for  which, 
children  shall  be  employed. 

In  Russia  and  in  Holland  there  were,  according  to  the 
British  Consular  Reports  of  1873  relative  to  Textile  Fac- 
tories, no  laws  regulating  or  restricting  the  labor  of  chil- 
dren.3 Mr.  Walsham  reported  that  in  the  Netherlands 
children  were  employed  so  young  that  they  could  earn  but 
a  shilling  a  week.  Mr.  Egerton  reported  that  in  Russia 
thirteen  hours  a  day  was  the  general  average  of  the  fac- 
tories, the  children  working  as  long  as  the  men. 

Y.  Sympathy  and  respect  for  labor  in  the  community. 

It  is  at  this  point  that  we  traverse  most  completely  the 
orthodox  political  economy.  There  has  been  no  end  of 
contemptuous  ridicule,  or  grave  rebuke  from  the  profes- 
sors of  the  science,  and  from  reviews  and  journals  es- 
pecially affecting  that  character,  towards  those  who  have 
assumed  that  a  friendly  public  opinion  could  effect  any 
substantial  improvement  in  the  condition  of  the  work- 
ing classes.  "  It  is  not  unusual,"  says  Mr.  McLeod,  "  to 
hear  persons  of  benevolence  who  see  the  shocking  misery 
which  even  now  prevails  among  so  many  in  this  country, 
exclaim  that  employers  ought  to  pay  higher  wages. 
But  all  such  ideas  are  visionary."4 

Especially  has  the  agitation  respecting  the  wages  of 
women  been  deprecated  as  useless  or  mischievous.  "We 

1  Report  of  Mr.  Herries,  1871,  p.  284. 

2  Report  of  Mr.  Gosling  on  Textile  Factories,  1873,  p.  116. 

3  P.  66  (Mr.  Walsham) ;  p.  Ill  (Mr.  Egerton). 

4  Pol.  Econ.,  pp.  211,  212. 


PUBLIC  OPINION  AFFECTS  WAGES.  363 

are  told  that  "  the  inexorable  laws  of  supply  and  de- 
mand" determine  the  rate  of  wages;  that  benevolence 
has  no  more  to  do  here  than  with  the  operations  of  the 
steam-engine ;  that  competition  is  the  one  irresistible, 
unrelenting  force  which  overbears  all  considerations  of 
compassion  or  charity,  and  works  out  a  predetermined  re- 
sult with  unerring  certainty.  Who  is  not  familiar  with 
these  phrases  ? 

The  man  would  be  weak  or  ignorant  who  should  ex- 
pect that  any  but  the  most  exceptional  and  eccentric  of 
mortals  would  at  any  given  time  pay  more  than  the 
market  rate  of  wages,  or  should  look  upon  such  possible 
exhibitions  of  disinterested  philanthropy  as  likely  to  set 
a  fashion  to  be  followed  by  the  shrewd,  eager,  and  but  lit- 
tle unselfish  men  who  make  up  the  mass  of  employers. 
But  the  question  is,  whether  the  force  we  here  invoke 
may  not  help  to  fix  that  very  market  rate  of  wages.  It  is 
not  asserted  that  this  sympathy  and  respect  entertained  for 
labor  by  the  general  community  need  ever  be  distinctly 
present  in  the  consciousness,  as  a  motive  to  individual  or 
class  for  advancing  wages.  But  I  base  the  proposition 
that  these  do  constitute  one  condition  of  a  right  distribu- 
tion of  the  products  of  industry,  upon  accepted  principles 
of  moral  philosophy,  supported  by  inferences,  which  ap- 
pear to  me  conclusive,  from  economic  statistics  of  wide 
range  and  undoubted  authority  in  a  kindred  department 
of  industrial  contract. 

First,  of  the  reason  of  the  case.  Let  us  recall  the  prin- 
ciple so  frequently  insisted  on,  that  it  is  only  as  competi- 
tion is  perfect  that  the  wages  class  have  any  security  that 
they  will  receive  the  highest  remuneration  which  the  ex- 
isting conditions  of  industry  will  permit ;  that  in  the 
failure  of  competition  they  may  be  pushed  down  grade 
after  grade  in  the  industrial  as  in  the  social  scale,  there 
being  almost  no  limit  to  the  possible  degradation  of  the 
working  classes  where  a  free  circulation  of  labor  is 
denied.  Let  us  recall,  moreover,  that  the  failure  of  com- 


364  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

petition  may  be  due  to  moral  as  much  as  to  physical 
causes  ;  that  if  the  workman  from  any  cause  does  not  pur- 
sue his  interest,  he  loses  his  interest,  whether  he  refrain 
from  bodily  fear,  from  poverty,  from  ignorance,  from 
timidity  and  dread  of  censure,  or  from  the  effects  of  bad 
political  economy  which  assures  him  that  if  he  does  not 
seek  his  interest,  his  interest  will  seek  him.  Let  us  bear  in 
mind,  moreover,  that  it  matters  nothing  whether  compe- 
tition fails  in  his  case  because  he  does  not  begin  to  seek  a 
better  market,  or,  having  begun,  gives  up  in  discourage- 
ment. 

Now,  I  ask,  can  it  be  doubtful  that  the  respect  and 
sympathy  of  the  community  must  strengthen  the  wages 
class  in  this  unceasing  struggle  for  economical  advan- 
tages ;  must  give  weight  and  force  to  all  their  reasonable 
demands ;  must  make  them  more  resolute  and  patient  in 
resisting  encroachment ;  must  add  to  the  confidence  with 
which  each  individual  laborer  will  rely  on  the  good  faith 
of  those  who  are  joined  with  him  in  his  cause,  and  make 
it  harder  for  any  weak  or  doubtful  comrade  to  succumb 
in  the  contest  ? 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  will  not  the  consciousness  that 
the  whole  community  sympathize  with  the  efforts  of 
labor  to  advance  its  condition  by  all  fair  means,  inevit- 
ably weaken  the  resistance  of  the  employing  class  to 
claims  which  can  be  conceded,  diminish  the  confidence 
with  which  each  employer  looks  to  his  fellows  to  hold  out 
to  the  end,  and  make  it  easier  for  the  less  resolute  to  re- 
tire from  the  contest  and  grant,  amid  general  applause, 
what  has  been  demanded  ?  He  must  be  more  than  hu- 
man or  less  than  human  who  is  uninfluenced  by  the 
friendly  or  the  cold  regards  of  men. 

And  if  such  a  disposition  of  the  public  mind  must  con- 
firm the  union  and  exalt  the  courage  and  sustain  the  faith 
of  the  party  that  hears  everywhere  approving  words, 
meets  everywhere  looks  of  sympathy,  and  must  tend  to 
impair  somewhat,  at  least,  the  mutual  trust  and  common 


POPULAR  SYMPATHY  WITH  LABOR.  365 


resolution  of  their  opponents,  who  shall  say  that  wages 
may  not  be  affected  thereby  ? 

Let  us  apply  these  principles  to  an  individual  case. 
Hodge  thinks — Hodge  is  a  ploughman,  and  has  been  get- 
ting twelve  shillings  a  week — that  he  ought  to  have  more 
wages ;  or,  rather — for  Hodge  would  scarcely  put  it  so 
abruptly — he  feels  that  it  is  dreadfully  hard  to  live  on 
twelve  shillings.  He  has  attended  a  lecture  delivered  by 
Mr.  Joseph  Arch,  from  a  wagon  on  the  green.  He  is 
uneasy,  and  wants  to  improve  his  condition.  So  far, 
then,  he  is  a  hopeful  subject  economically.  The  desire 
to  improve  one's  condition  is  the  sine  qua  non  of  compe- 
tition. Will  these  stirrings  of  industrial  ambition  come 
to  any  thing  ?  Will  this  little  leaven  of  unrest  leaven  the 
whole  of  the  very  lumpish  lump  christened  Hodge  ? 
Will  the  discontented  ploughman  seek  and  find  his  bet- 
ter market  ?  This  is  a  great  question,  for  upon  the  an- 
swer to  it  depends  the  future  of  Hodge,  and  perhaps  of  his 
sons  and  grandsons.  Let  the  Spectator1  tell  how  he  is 
assisted  on  his  way  and  encouraged  in  his  weak,  ignorant, 
doubting  mind  by  landlord,  bishop,  and  judge. 

"  The  man  has  been,  so  to  speak,  morally  whipped  for 
six  months.  He  has  found  no  friend  anywhere,  except  in 
a  press  he  can  neither  read  nor  understand.  The  duke 
has  deprived  him  of  his  allotment ;  the  bishop  has  rec- 
ommended that  his  instructor  should  be  ducked;  the 
squire  has  threatened  him  with  dismissal  in  winter ; 
the  magistrate  has  fined  him  for  quitting  work,  which  is 
just,  and  scolded  him  for  listening  to  lectures,  which  is 
tyranny ;  the  mayor  at  Evesham  has  prohibited  him  from 
meeting  on  the  green ;  and  the  lawyer — witness  a  re- 
cent case  near  Chelmsford — has  told  him  that  any  one 
who  advises  and  helps  him  to  emigrate  is  a  hopeless 
rascal.** 

Now,  I  ask,  is  Hodge  quite  as  likely  to  pursue  his  in- 


August   4t\\,  1873. 


366  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

terest  and  persist  in  whatever  that  requires,  as  if  his 
social  superiors  and  the  men  who  should  be  his  instructors 
and  helpers  were  encouraging  him  to  better  his  fortune 
if  he  finds  a  chance,  instead  of  telling  him  that  if  he  de- 
mands more  wages,  he  is  kicking  against  the  wage-fund, 
and  that  if  lie  kicks  against  the  wage-fund,  he  is  defying 
an  ordinance  of  heaven ;  or  as  if  the  law  were  adminis- 
tered occasionally  by  men  indifferent1  in  the  dispute 
between  himself  and  his  employer ;  as  if  the  shop-keeper 
and  the  publican  and  the  lawyer  and  the  rector  were  not 
all  ranged  against  him  ?  Is  it  not  possible  that,  for  the 
lack  of  a  little  fanning,  the  feeble  flame  in  Hodge's  breast 
may  die  out,  and  he,  giving  up  all  thoughts  of  seeking 
his  fortune  elsewhere,  return  to  his  furrow,  never  to  stray 
from  it  again  ?  And  so  vale,  Hodge ! 

Political  economy,  says  Mr.  Mill,  is  concerned  with  man 
"  solely  as  a  being  who  desires  to  possess  wealth,  and  who 
is  capable  of  judging  of  the  comparative  efficacy  of 
means  for  obtaining  that  end.  ...  It  makes  entire  abstrac- 
tion of  every  other  human  passion  or  motive  except  those 
which  may  be  regarded  as  perpetually  antagonizing  prin- 
ciples to  the  desire  of  wealth — namely,  aversion  to  labor 
and  desire  of  the  present  enjoyment  of  costly  indulgences." 

Among  beings  thus  constituted,  doubtless  competition 
would  prove  "  inexorable."  But,  surely,  economists  should 
be  careful  how  they  apply  to  mankind  as  they  are,  conclu- 
sions which  they  have  deduced  from  the  study  of  such  a 
monstrous  race,  made  up  entire  of  laziness  and  greed,  in- 
capable of  love  or  hate  or  shame. 

Abstract  every  other  human  passion  and  motive  !  elimi- 
nate respect  and  sympathy!  Why,  who  can  say  how 
largely  THIS  VERY  LOVE  OF  WEALTH  is  due  to  the  unwilling- 
ness to  be  thought  meanly  of  by  our  fellow-men,  or  the 
more  positive  desire  to  excite  their  envy  or  admiration  ? 


*As  I  understand  it,  no  man  in  England  can  be  a  justice  of  the 
peace  unless  he  have  an  estate  of  £100  a  year  in  land. 


PUBLIC  OPINION  INFLUENCES  RENTS.  367 

And  if  regard  for  the  opinions  of  others  may  be  a  suffi- 
cient reason,  as  we  know  it  is,  for  men  to  exert  themselves 
laboriously  and  painfully,  why  may  it  not  be  a  reason  for 
men  to  forbear '  to  press  their  power  and  their  undoubted 
rights  to  the  point  of  cruelty  ? 

As  this  subject  is  of  prime  importance,  I  beg  nr 
reader's  indulgence  in  making  an  excursion  into  another 
department  of  political  economy — namely,  that  of  rent — to 
see  if  we  may  not  find  there  evidence  of  the  influence  of 
this  very  cause  which  we  have  invoked  in  aid  of  labor. 
If  competition  is  "  inexorable ;"  if  the  laws  of  supply 
and  demand  are  "  immutable ;"  if  the  desire  of  gain  is  an 
all-controlling  passion,  these  things  ought  to  be  found  so 
in  the  department  of  rent  as  truly  as  in  the  department  of 
wages.  As  we  must  make  a  selection,  let  us  take  three 
countries  whose  land  systems  have  been  carefully  studied  ; 
countries  in  which  peasant  proprietorship  is  found  in  an 
exceptionally  small  degree,  and  where,  consequently,  the 
question  of  rent  becomes  of  the  highest  importance  to  the 
welfare  of  the  people.  These  are  England,  Italy,  and 
Ireland. 

In  England,  Prof.  Thorold  Rogers  declares,  rents  have 
remained  at  a  point  much  below  that  to  which  com- 
petition alone  would  carry  them.  The  vaunted  gene- 
rosity of  land-owners  is,  he  says,  "  really  the  necessity  of 
the  situation.  Englishmen  would  not  tamely  acquiesce 
in  a  practice  which  continually  revalued  their  occupancies 
and  made  their  own  outlay  the  basis  for  an  enhanced  rent. 
The  rent  of  agricultural  land  is  therefore  seldom  the 
maximum  annual  value  of  the  occupancy ;  in  many  cases, 
is  considerably  below  such  an  amount."2  Again  he  says : 

1  Mr.  Tremenlieere,  in  his  testimony  on  truck  before  the  Committee 
of  1854  on  the  Payment  of  Wages,  says  :  "I  believe,  from  all  that  I 
have  heard  in  different  mining-districts,  that,  as  a  rule,  the  large  com- 
panies, and  the  persons  who  are  amenable  to  public  opinion  among  gen- 
tlemen, do  not  resort  to  those  petty  and  indirect  modes  of  cheating  their 
workmen."   (Report,  p.  40.) 

2  Cobden  and  Political  Opinion,  p.  94. 


368  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

"  The  tenant  is  virtually  protected  by  the  disreputable 
publicity  which  would  be  given  to  a  sudden  eviction  or  a 
dishonest  appropriation  of  the  tenant's  improvements."1 

In  Italy  we  find  local  usages  respecting  land  nearly  all- 
powerful,  though  exceptions  exist  of  provinces  where 
competition2  has  entered  to  enhance  rents.  "  The  same 
misfortune,"  says  Sismondi,  in  writing  of  Tuscany, 
"  would  probably  have  befallen  this  people  if  public  opinion 
did  not  protect  the  cultivator ;  but  a  proprietor  would  not 
dare  to  impose  conditions  unusual  in  the  country ;  and 
even  in  changing  one  metayer  for  another,  he  alters  no- 
thing of  the  terms  of  the  engagement." 

The  third  country  I  have  taken  is  probably  the  only  one 
of  "Western  Europe  to  which  we  could  turn  as  affording 
an  example  of  rents  kept  at  the  point  to  which  unre- 
strained competition  would  carry  them.  And  if  we  ask 
why  it  was  that  the  "  laws  of  supply  and  demand  "  proved 
here  indeed  "  inexorable,"  we  find  not  contradiction  but 
corroboration  of  our  principle.  It  is  not  necessary  to  go 
far  back  in  the  history  of  Ireland  to  show  why  it  was  that 
nothing  intervened  here  to  prevent  the  tenantry  from  be- 
ing ground  down  by  unintermitted  competition.  It  was 
because  sympathy  and  confidence  and  mutual  respect3 

'Pol.  Econ.,  p.  184. 

2  Is  it  said,  You  are  speaking  of  a  failure  of  competition    as  if  it 
•were  favorable  to  a  beneficial  distribution  of    property  ?  I  answer, 
Absolute  competition,  equal  on  both  sides,  is  the  single  condition  of  a 
perfect  distribution.    But  if  the  laborers  are  disabled  from  competition 
by  ignorance,  poverty,  or  other  cause — as  the  laborers  of  so  many  coun- 
tries are,  in  the  mass — then  it  is  merciful  that  public  opinion  or  the 
force  of  law  enters  to  prevent  them  from  being  crushed,  as  they  would 
be,  in  their  inertia  if  competition  remained  in  full  force  on  the  mas- 
ter's side.     Competition  to  be  beneficial  must  be  exerted  like  the  pres- 
sure of  the  atmosphere — everywhere  and  uniformly. 

3  "  The  landlord  of  an  Irish  estate  inhabited  by  Roman  Catholics  is 
a  sort  of  despot  who  yields  obedience,  in  whatever  concerns  the  poor, 
to  no  law  but  that  of  his  will.  .  .  .     Nothing1  satisfies  him  but  an 
unlimited  submission.     Disrespect,  or  any  thing  tending  toward  sauci- 
ness,   he  may  punish  with  his  cane  or  his  horse-whip  with  the  most 


RENTS  IN  IRELAND.  369 

were  unknown  between  the  two  classes  of  the  population. 
It  was  not  merely  that  the  land-owners  of  Ireland  and  its 
peasantry  were  of  different  races,  of  different  religions,1 
and,  to  no  small  degree,  of  different  speech — distinctions 
in  themselves  of  tremendous  moment.  There  was  more 
than  this  and  worse  than  this  in  Ireland.  The  title  of  the 
landlord  was  from  conquest  and  confiscation,  and  to  sus- 
tain an  original  wrong  had  required  a  system  of  legal 
discrimination  and  proscription,  of  which  the  judicious 
Hallam  says:  "To  have  exterminated  the  Catholics  by 
the  sword,  or  expelled  them  like  the  Moriscoes  of  Spain, 
would  have  been  little  more  repugnant  to  justice  and  hu- 
manity, but  incomparably  more  politic."  a 

It  is  thus  that  Macaulay  describes  the  relations  of  the 
Saxon  and  the  Celtic  inhabitants  of  Ireland  in  1685  :  "  On 
the  same  soil  dwelt  two  populations  locally  intermixed,mor- 
ally  and  politically  sundered.  The  difference  of  religion 
was  by  no  means  the  only  difference,  or  even  the  chief 
difference.  They  sprang  from  different  stocks;  they 
spoke  different  languages.  They  had  different  national 
characters,  as  strongly  opposed  as  any  two  national  charac- 
ters in  Europe.  They  were  in  widely  different  stages  of 
civilization.  Between  two  such  populations  there  could 
be  little  sympathy ;  and  centuries  of  calamities  and  wrongs 
had  generated  a  strong  antipathy.  The  relation  in  which 
the  minority  stood  to  the  majority  resembled  the  relation 
in  which  the  followers  of  "William  the  Conqueror  stood  to 

perfect  security.  A  poor  man  would  have  his  bones  broken  if  he 
offered  to  lift  his  hands  in  his  own  defence.  .  .  .  The  execution  of 
the  laws  lies  very  much  in  the  hands  of  justices  of  the  peace,  many  of 
whom  are  drawn  from  the  most  illiberal  class  in  the  kingdom" — Ar- 
thur Young,  Tour  ia  Ireland  (Pinkerton's  Travels,  iii.  837,  cf.  p.  816.) 

1  Of  three  great  divisions  of  Ireland — Leinster,  Munster,  and  Con- 
naught — Mr.  O'Connor  Morris  says:  "  Probably  seven  eighths  of  the 
land  belong  to  a  proprietary  of  Protestants,  and  perhaps  even  a  greater 
proportion  of  the  occupiers  are  Roman  Catholics."  (The  Land  Ques- 
tion of  Ireland,  p.  231.) 

a  Constitutional  F'story  of  England,  iii.  883. 


370  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

the  Saxon  churls,  or  the  relation  in  which  the  followers 
of  Cortes  stood  to  the  Indians  of  Mexico."1 

This  truly  is  a  state  of  things  in  which  we  might  look 
with  confidence  to  find  the  law  of  supply  and  demand 
"  inexorable,"  and  so,  in  these  circumstances,  it  proved. 
The  improvidence  and  ignorance  of  the  peasantry  concur- 
ring, rents  were  advanced  by  the  acquisitive  and  aggres- 
sive passion  of  the  land-holding  class,  unchecked  by  public 
sentiment  or  generally  by  individual  kindness,  until  Lord 
Devon's  commission,  in  1844,  found  that  in  numerous 
cases  the  nominal  rent  of  land  was  greater  than  the  money 
value  of  the  annual  produce,  the  tenant  being  kept  there- 
by perpetually  in  debt  to  the  landlord,  whose  interest  it 
became  to  allow  him,  thus  involved,  to  remain  upon  the 
soil.2 

Now,  I  desire  not  to  disparage  the  influence  of  other 
causes  in  bringing  about  this  result,  but  I  can  not  think  that 
the  history  of  the  land  in  Ireland  would  have  been  what 
we  know  it  was,  had  the  landlord  and  tenant  classes  con- 
stituted one  proper  population,  with  ties  of  a  common 
speech,  faith,  and  blood,  having  equal  rights  before  the 
law,  and  with  those  kindly  feelings  which,  for  all  that  is 
evil  in  us,  are  more  natural  between  men  and  classes  of 
men,  than  distrust  and  dislike.  And  even  with  such  a 
miserable  relation  as  existed  between  the  two  classes  of 
the  Irish  population,  I,  for  one,  do  not  believe  that  such  a 
miserable  result  would  have  been  possible,  had  not  so  large 
a  portion  of  the  land-owners  been  absentees,3  conducting 
their  exactions  through  agents  selected  and  rewarded  for 
their  success  in  wringing  money  from  the  soil,  seeing  and 

1  History  of  England,  chap.  vi. 

2  "  The  Irish  peasantry  were  incomparably  worse  off  than  the  French 
peasantry  were  before  the  Revolution." — Prof.  Rogers,  Pol.  Econ.  180. 

3  "I  am  aware  that,  iu  the  view  of  political  economy  as  taught  by 
writers  of  the  hypothetical  school,  an  absent  landlord  is  identical  with 
a  landlord  present  ;   just  as,  by  Mr.  Mill's  definition,  Simon  Magus 
and  Simon  Peter,  John  of  Cappadocia  and  John  the  Baptist,  are  exact 
economical  equivalents  " — Address  at  Amherst,  1874. 


RESPECT  AND  SYMPATHY  FOR  LABOR.  371 

hearing  nothing  of  the  wretchedness  they  caused,  and 
drowning  all  misgivings  in  the  revelry  of  foreign  capitals. 

Time  would  fail  to  trace  the  course  of  that  improve- 
ment in  the  condition  of  the  people  which,  by  general 
admission,  has  taken  place  in  Ireland  since  1850.  Here, 
again,  I  desire  not  to  disparage  the  influence  of  other  causes, 
but  I  can  not  doubt  that  some  part  of  the  beneficial  result 
observed  has  been  due,  first,  to  the  great  liberalizing  and 
ameliorating  movement  throughout  the  kingdom,  which 
threw  down  so  many  of  the  old  hateful  distinctions  of  faith 
and  class ;  a  movement  in  which  the  reform  of  the  crimi- 
nal code,  Catholic  emancipation,  the  suffrage  act  of  1832, 
the  repeal  of  the  penal  acts  against  Jews  and  Dissenters, 
and  the  abolition  of  the  corn-laws— each  was  at  once  effect 
and  cause  of  new  effects ;  a  movement  which  was  felt 
latest  in  Ireland  because  Ireland  had  been  so  widely  and 
deeply  sundered  in  interest  and  feeling ;  and,  secondly,  to 
the  remorse  and  shame  and  pity  which  were  awakened  by 
the  disclosures  of  Lord  Devon's  commission,  followed 
close  by  that  horrible  and  sickening  demonstration,  the 
Famine  of  1846— T,  which  brought  home  to  every  man  and 
woman  in  the  United  Kingdom,  in  images  never  to  fade 
from  view,  the  wrongs  and  miseries  of  Ireland.  If  the 
peasantry  of  the  Green  Isle  are  better  off  to-day  than  a 
generation  ago,  it  is  due,  not  alone  to  the  general  indus- 
trial advances  of  the  intervening  period,  or  to  the  migra- 
tion of  surplus  labor,  if,  indeed,  that  labor  was  ever  truly 
in  excess,  but  also,  and  in  no  small  part,  to  the  happy 
change  which  has  passed  over  the  moral  relations  of  land- 
lord and  tenant. 

If,  then,  after  so  brief  a  survey  we  find  public  opinion 
operating  thus  powerfully  in  the  department  of  Rent,  are 
we  not  justified  in  the  assertion  that  it  must  also  be  opera- 
tive in  some  degree  in  Wages  ? 

I  do  not,  be  it  observed,  claim  that  wages  can  be  en- 
hanced by  any  but  economical  causes ;  I  merely  assert  that 
respect  for  labor  and  sympathy  with  the  body  of  laborers. 


372  THE   WAGES  QUESTION. 

on  the  part  of  the  general  community,  constitute  an  eco- 
nomical cause,  in  just  so  far  as  they  strengthen  the  laborer 
in  his  pursuit  of  his  own  interest,  thus  making  competi- 
tion on  his  part  more  effective,  and  in  just  so  far  as  they 
take  something  from  the  severity  with  which  the  employer 
insists  upon  his  immediate  interest,  thus  reducing  the 
force  of  competition  on  that  side,  making  it  more  nearly 
equal  to  that  which  the  laborer,  poor,  fearful,  and  ignorant, 
may  be  able  to  oppose. 


It  is  in  the  partial  failure  of  the  condition  on  which  I 
have  here  dwelt  so  much  at  length  that  we  find  one  impor- 
tant cause  of  the  inadequate  wages  of  women. 

But  first  as  to  the  fact  of  wages  inadequate  to  the  ser- 
vice performed.  Nothing  is  more  common  than  the  asser- 
tion, in  print,  that  women  are  paid  but  one  half  or  one 
third  as  much  as  men  for  performing  the  same  work. 
Such  assertions  are  generally  based  on  a  misconception  of 
the  actual  constitution  of  industrial  society.  Because  a 
woman  working  in  a  woollen  factory  receives  but  twelve 
shillings  a  week  while  a  man  gets  twenty-four,  it  can  not 
properly  be  said  that  the  latter  receives  twice  as  much  for 
doing  the  same  work,  since  the  work  done  in  a  factory  is 
of  many  kinds,  making  very  different  demands  upon  the 
operatives  in  the  respects  of  strength,  skill,  and  intelli- 
gence, and  hence  justly  remunerated  at  very  different 
rates,  from  threepence  a  day,  it  may  be,  to  as  many  shil- 
lings. And  if  we  inquire,  we  shall  find  that  women  in  a 
woollen  factory  are  in  fact  rarely  engaged  upon  the  same 
kind  of  work  as  the  men.  Thus  in  an  account  of  the  organi- 
zation of  a  representative  establishment  given  in  the  Sta- 
tistical Journal,  where  the  number  and  sex  of  the  opera- 
tives of  each  class  are  stated,  and  the  wages  paid  to  each, 
I  note  that  all  the  hand-loom  weavers  are  men,  all  the 
power-loom  weavers  women.  And  I  also  note  what  is 
significant,  that  the  wages  of  the  men  employed  as  hand- 


WOMAN'S  WAGES.  373 

loom  weavers  are  much  nearer  women's  wages  than  the 
wages  of  the  men  employed  in  any  other  department  of 
the  factory. 

In  the  same  way,  in  his  history  of  the  cotton  manu- 
facture, published  a  generation  ago,  Mr.  Baines  stated 
that  large  departments  were  then  entirely  given  up  to 
women  and  children.  Now,  clearly,  as  Mr.  Baines  re- 
marks, "  that  which  is  only  a  child's  labor  can  be  remuner- 
ated only  by  a  child's  wages."  We  have  seen  that  the 
employer  can  not  pay  in  wages  more  than  he  may  fairly 
look  to  get  back  in  the  price  of  his  products.  Hence  the 
fact  that  a  woman  may  require  more  to  subsist  upon  than 
a  twelve-year-old  boy  affords  no  economical  reason  why 
she  should  receive  more  wages  if  she  only  does  the  same 
kind  of  work. 

But  even  though  women  performed  the  same  kind  of 
work  as  men,  receiving  therefor  wages  less  than  men,  it 
would  not  follow,  as  of  course,  that  their  wages  were  in- 
adequate to  their  service.  The  differences  existing  in  re- 
spect to  the  efficiency  of  labor,  both  on  the  side  of  wrork 
and  on  the  side  of  waste,  have  been  seen  (Chapter  III.)  to 
be  very  great  as  between  laborers  actually  employed  in 
the  same  operation.  Hence  it  might  be  true  that  a  man 
and  a  woman  working  at  the  same  table,  upon  the  same 
material,  with  the  same  implements,  or  laboring  side  by 
side  in  the  fields,1  should  receive  wages  in  very  dif- 
ferent amounts,  and  yet  their  respective  services  be  most 
exactly  recompensed. 

Now,  there  are  reasons,  some  of  a  social  and  some  of  a 
physiological  nature,  for  the  services  of  women,  as  a  body, 
being  in  a  degree  less  desirable  to  employers  than  those  of 
men.  The  physiological  reasons  have  been  well  stated  by 
Dr.  Ames  in  his  recent  book,  Sex  in  Industry.  These 
are  sufficient  totally  to  debar  women  from  many  occupa- 

1  It  may  fairly  be  assumed,  for  instance,  that  the  ratio  between  the 
average  value  of  male  and  of  female  serfs  in  Russia  employed  in  agri- 
culture before  the  emancipation — namely,  £50  and  £17  respectively 
(Statistical  Journal,  xxiii.  379) — fairly  represented  the  relative  worth  to 
the  owner  of  the  two  kinds  of  labor. 


374  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

tior.s,  and  greatly  to  reduce  their  efficiency  in  others.1 
Among  social  reasons  we  may  adduce  the  generally  less 
practical  education  which  girls  receive  as  compared  with 
that  given  to  boys,  and  the  almost  universal  expectation  of 
domesticity  which  is  inherent  and  ineradicable  in  the  con- 
stitution of  woman,  interfering  not  only  with  her  prepara- 
tion for  active  pursuits,  but  also  with  her  prosecution  of 
them,  because  it  reduces  the  singleness  of  purpose  and  in- 
terest with  which  her  duties  are  discharged,  and  depreci- 
ates in  the  eyes  of  her  employer,  and  justly  so,  the  value 
of  services  which  may  abruptly  be  terminated  by  mar- 
riage. Nor  are  these  industrial  disabilities  to  be  wholly 
cured  by  any  cause  that  shall  not  disrupt  and  destroy  so- 
ciety. Just  so  long  as  girls  grow  up  in  the  belief  that  their 
mission  is  not  to  work  in  a  shop,  but  to  adorn  a  home, 
their  education  will  take  shape  accordingly.  Parents  and 
school-boards  may  lay  out  courses  of  study  with  never  so 
much  of  utilitarian  intention,  the  mind  of  the  girl  will  se- 
crete sweetness  and  grace  from  whatever  food  is  offered 
it.  And  just  so  long  as  the  same  tender  illusion  lasts — and 
we  know  it  will  outlast  much  bitter  experience — woman 
will  serve  distraite,  if  not  unhappy,  as  one  who  has  a 
name  she  has  not  yet  taken,  a  city  to  which  she  has  not 
come.  If  a  man  marries,  he  as  a  rule  becomes  a  better 
and  more  stable  workman  on  that  account.  If  a  woman 
marries,  it  is  most  probable  that  she  will  leave  her  employ- 
ment ;  it  is  almost  certain  that  if  she  remains  she  will  be 
a  less  desirable  laborer  than  before.  This  expectation 
of  domesticity  is  always  likely  to  exist  with  greater  or  less 
force  in  the  female  mind,  and  will  inevitably,  wherever  it 
exists,  reduce  the  efficiency  of  female  labor. 

Yet  though  there  is  thus  much  misapprehension  of  the 
relation  between  the  wages  of  women  and  those  of  men, 
there  can,  I  think,  be  no  question  that  the  wages  of  the 

1  Mr.  Brassey  states  that  in  the  construction  of  the  Lemberg  and 
Czernowitz  railway,  in  some  places  half  the  people  t-mployed  were  wo- 
men, who  earned  1.60  francs  a  day,  while  the  men  earned  from  two  to 
three  francs.  (Work  and  Wages,  p.  105.) 


WOMAN'S  WAGES.  375 

former1  are  in  a  degree  inadequate  to  the  service  rendered, 
after  due  allowance  for  all  differences  of  amount  and 
quality.  If  there  be  such  inadequacy,  the  sole  cause 
must,  as  we  have  seen  (Chapter  X.),  be  found  in  the  fail- 
ure of  competition. 

Inasmuch  as  the  failure  of  competition  comes  mainly 
through  the  immobility  of  labor,  let  us  inquire  whether 
female  labor  is  under  any  exceptional  disabilities  in  respect 
to  movement. 

In  the  first  place,  it  needs  to  be  observed  that  women 
have  far  more  occasion,  relatively,  to  move  to  the  labor- 
market  than  men,  and  have  need,  therefore,  to  be  far 
more  mobile  and  active.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
industries  for  which  women  are  physiologically  suited  are 
highly  localized.  Wherever  there  is  population,  there  are 
women  who  feel  the  necessity  of  working  outside  their 
own  families  for  subsistence :  yet  the  opportunities 
for  their  employment  in  mechanical  work  are  found 
only  here  and  there.  Thus,  in  Allegheny  County, 
Pennsylvania,  we  find  that  there  were  in  18702  29,139 
men  employed  in  mechanical  labor,  and  but  1723 
women  ;  in  Erie  County,  New- York,  11,357  men  and  but 
960  women ;  in  Wayne  County,  Michigan,  11,543  men 
and  but  1454  women  ;  in  St.  Louis  County,  Missouri, 
32,484  men  and  but  3455  women  ;  in  Cook  County,  Il- 
linois, 24,705  men  and  but  4652  women ;  in  Cuyahoga 
County,  Ohio,  8698  men  and  but  791  women.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  were  5887  women  employed  in  Hillsborough 
County,  New-Hampshire,  against  7627  men  ;  in  Andros- 
coggin  and  York  Counties,  Maine,  respectively  4:045  and 
4512  women  against  3908  and  3689  men.  These  are  only 

1  "  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  in  the  great  majority  of  occupations,  the 
average  wages  of  a  boy,  a  woman,  and  a  girl  added  together  amount 
to  those  of  a  man." — Dudley  Baxter,  National  Income,  p.  49. 

Lord  Brabazon  gives  the  average  daily  pay  of  French  day  -In  borers  in 
agriculture  as  one  franc  seventy-five  centimes  for  men,  eighty-five  cen- 
times for  women,  and  sixty -three  centimes  for  children  ;  but  women 
and  children  are  employed  for  only  a  fraction  of  a  year. 

2  Ninth  census  of  the  United  States  (Industry  and  Wealth,  table 
ix.  A). 


376  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

given  as  instances  to  show  how  irregularly  and  how  rarely 
at  the  best,  the  opportunities  for  the  employment  of 
women  in  mechanical  industry  occur.  An  examination 
of  the  statistics  of  industry  in  the  United  States  discloses 
that  of  the  women  employed  in  mechanical  pursuits,  forty- 
two  per  cent  are  found  in  only  seven  counties,  comprising 
but  seven  per  cent  of  the  population  of  the  country. 

While  women  have  thus  far  more  occasion  relatively  to 
move  to  their  market  than  men,  we  find  them  disabled 
therefrom,  in  a  great  measure,  by  physical  weakness,  by 
timidity,  and  by  those  liabilities  to  misconstruction,  insult, 
and  outrage  which  arise  out  of  their  sexual  characteris- 
tics. Having  more  need  than  men  to  be  free  to  move 
from  place  to  place,  they  have  far  less  ability  to  do  so.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  it  is  not  a  question  merely  of 
taking  a  journey  from  home  to  a  place  where  a  "  situation" 
has  already  been  engaged,  but,  it  may  be,  of  seeking  out 
employment  from  street  to  street,  and  from  shop  to  shop, 
by  repeated  inquiries,  and  often  through  much  urgency 
and  persistency  of  application.  This  is  what  men  have  to 
do  to  "  get  a  place,"  often  going  into  doubtful  localities, 
freely  encountering  strangers,  and  sleeping  in  casual  com- 
pany. These,  with  men,  are  among  the  conditions  of  the 
mobility  of  labor  which  not  only  secures  employment  for 
the  individual  applicant,  but  relieves  the  pressure  upon 
the  market  elsewhere,  and  oftentimes  prevents  that  pain- 
ful or  fatal  "congestion  of  labor"  which  breaks  down 
wages,  crushes  the  hopefulness  and  self-respect  of  the  ope- 
rative class,  and  engenders  habits  of  laboring  and  living 
which  it  may  take  long,  even  under  favorable  conditions,  to 
wear  out  of  the  industrial  body. 

To  state  these  conditions  is  to  show  some  of  the  disad- 
vantages under  which  women  have  labored  in  the  past 
from  their  natural  indisposition  and  disqualification  to  en- 
counter strangers  and  make  terms  for  themselves.  I 
would  not  seek  to  idealize  the  sex  in  dealing  with  so  plain 
and  practical  a  matter.  No  one  who  has  had  to  do  with 
book-agents  of  both  sexes  would  unhesitatingly  award  the 
palm  for  persistency  and  assurance  to  the  man ;  while  it 


WOMAN'S  WAGES.  377 

is  proverbial  that  female  venders  of  fish,  in  all  countries 
and  ages,  have  succeeded  so  far  in  overcoming  their  native 
meekness  and  bashf ulness  as  to  qualify  them  fully  to  hold 
their  own  whether  in  a  bargain  or  in  a  wrangle.  Nor  would 
it  be  just  to  speak  of  female  labor  anywhere  as  if  it  were  ab- 
solutely immobile.  Country  girls  have  always  gone  to  the 
city  to  find  employment  in  shops  and  stores ;  while  the 
cotton  factories  and  the  boot  and  shoe  shops  of  Massa- 
chusetts and  Rhode  Island  have  always  been  filled  with 
women  from  the  rural  parts  of  New-England  and  even 
from  the  British  Provinces. 

Yet,  after  all  allowances  that  require  to  be  made,  it  re- 
mains true  that  while,  from  the  specialization  and  localiza- 
tion of  the  industries  in  which  female  labor  is  employed, 
women  have  far  more  occasion  than  men  to  keep  them- 
selves free  to  seek  their  own  market,  they  are  in  fact,  from 
many  causes,  under  serious  disabilities  in  respect  to  move- 
ment from  place  to  place,1  with  all  which  that  implies  for 
females  poor  and  unprotected,  and,  it  may  be,  also  igno- 
rant and  fearful. 

While  much  of  this  disqualification  of  woman  for  seeking 
the  labor-market  arises  out  of  her  physiological  conditions, 
and  is  not  to  be  cured  by  law  or  opinion,  it  is  aleo  true 
that  no  inconsiderable  part  has  been  due,  in  the  past,  to  a 
lack  of  respect  and  sympathy  for  her  in  her  capacity  as  a 
laborer,  if  not  to  positive  prejudice  and  even  to  actual  phy- 
sical obstruction2  offered  to  her  industrial  movements. 

1  The  disability  which  women  suffer  on  account  of  their  sex,  when 
the  conditions  of  industry  require  emigration  from  the  country  of  their 
birth,  may  be  seen  from  the  following  facts  brought  out  by  the  Scotch 
census  of  1871.  Between  15  and  25  years  of  age  there  are  105.4  fe- 
males for  every  100  males  ;  between  25  acd  30  years  there  are  119.7  fe- 
males for  every  100  males.  (Report,  pp.  xvi,  xvii.) 

a  ««  We  can  no£  forget  that  some  years  ago  certain  trades-unionists  in 
the  potteries  imperatively  insisted  that  a  certain  rest  for  the  arm  which 
they  found  almost  essential  to  their  work,  should  not  be  used  by  wo- 
men engaged  in  the  same  employment.  Not  long  since,  the  London 
tailors,  when  on  a  strike,  having  never  admitted  a  woman  to  their 
union,  attempted  to  coerce  women  from  availing  themselves  of  the 
remunerative  employment  which  was  offered  in  consequence  of  the 
strike.  But  this  jealousy  of  women's  labor  has  not  been  entirely  con' 


378  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

Of  the  insults  and  violence  not  infrequently  offered  to 
women  seeking  employment  in  departments  of  industry 
which  men  have  chosen  to  regard  as  exclusively  their 
own,  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak.  Women  scarcely  need  this 
to  restrain  them  from  pursuing  their  economical  interests. 
Intensely  sensitive  to  opinion,1  they  shrink  from  the  faint- 
est utterances  of  blame ;  while  coldness  and  indifference 
alone  are  often  sufficient  to  'repress  their  impulses  to 
activity. 


fined  to  workmen.  The  same  feeling  has  extended  itself  through  every 
class  of  society.  Last  autumn  a  large  number  of  Post- Office  clerks  ob- 
jected to  the  employment  of  women  in  the  Post-Office. " — Henry  Faw- 
cett,  House  of  Commons,  July  30th,  1873.  (Speeches,  p.  133, 134.) 

"  An  important  strike  is  now  going  on  in  the  town  of  Leicester,  and 
what  is  the  cause  of  it  ?  Certain  manufacturers  wished  to  introduce 
women  into  their  factories,  and  the  men  claimed  a  right  not  only  to 
determine  the  price  of  labor,  but  also  on  what  conditions  women  should 
be  permitted  to  work.  Nor  is  this  all.  Within  the  last  fortnight 
there  has  been  a  great  meeting  of  delegates  of  the  Agricultural  Labor- 
ers'Union.  Women  were  not  admitted.  Why?  On  the  express  ground 
that  the  agricultural  laborers  of  this  country  do  not  wish  to  recognize 
the  labor  of  women." — Ibid,  June  23d,  1874.  (TheNews*  Report.) 

1  In  their  report  made  to  the  Local  Government  Board  in  1873,  Dr. 
Brydges  and  Mr.  Holmes  take  note  of  the  peculiar  sensitiveness  of 
female  laborers  to  the  praise  or  blame  of  their  employers  or  overseers  : 
"  It  would  appear,  from  statements  made  to  us  which  we  have  reason 
to  think  accurate,  that  it  is  very  much  easier  to  bring  pressure  to  bear 
upon  the  energies  of  female  operatives  than  of  male.  It  is  well  known 
that  with  many  workmen,  especially  if  they  be  members  of  trades- 
unions,  the  consciousness  that  their  fellow-workmen  are  present  and 
are  watching  their  work,  tends  rather  to  moderate  than  to  intensify 
their  zeaL  Animated  by  the  common  object  of  selling  their  labor 
dear,  they  are  apt  to  think  an  exceptionally  zealous  workman  a  traitor 
to  the  cause  of  labor.  With  women  the  reverse  would  seem  to  be  the 
case.  Less  able  to  fix  their  eyes  upon  a  distant  object,  less  apt  to  enrol 
themselves  in  a  well-drilled  organization  for  which  sacrifices  are  to  be 
made,  the  ultimate  compensation  for  which  themselves  and  those  im- 
mediately connected  with  them  may  never,  or  not  for  a  long  time, 
touch,  they  are  far  more  keenly  sensitive  to  the  motives  of  approbation 
and  vanity,  and  also  to  those  of  immediate  tangible  reward.  It  would 
seem  to  be  as  easy  to  goad  women  as  it  would  be  difficult  to  goad  men 
into  doing  the  greatest  amount  of  piece-work  in  a  given  time.  The 
admiration  of  their  companions  and  the  approbation  of  the  overlooker 
appear  to  be  at  least  as  powerful  inducements  as  the  increase  of  theif 
wages."  (Report,  p.  20.) 


WOMAN'S  WAGES.  879 

This  unfortunate  result — namely,  a  public  opinion  un- 
favorable, or  less  favorable  than  is  desirable,  to  the  exten- 
sion of  female  labor — is  doubtless  due  in  some  part  to  the 
comparative  newness  of  the  occasion  which  women  have  to 
enter  the  general  market  of  labor,  from  which  it  results 
that  their  entrance  is  not  unnaturally  greeted  by  the  body 
of  male  laborers  interested 'therein  as  an  intrusion  threat- 
ening a  reduction  of  their  own  wages,  while  the  outside 
community,  though  disinterested,  remains  indifferent,  not 
having  been  educated  up  to  the  point  of  giving  wromen  a 
warm  and  strong  moral  support  in  their  efforts  to  find  em- 
ployment, and  of  providing  adequate  protection  to  them 
in  the  casual  and  often  rude  encounters  which  the  search 
for  employment  may  involve. 

The  necessity  for  the  employment  of  women  in  wage- 
labor  not  agricultural,  in  any  thing  like  the  extent  which 
exists  at  present,  dates  from  the  decay  of  the  system  of 
domestic  manufactures  which  followed  the  extensive  intro- 
duction of  machinery  in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  "  The  original  artisans,"  says  Mr.  Mill,  "  were 
either  slaves  or  the  women  of  the  family."  '  It  was  the 
women  who  wove  and  spun,  fashioned  and  sewed,  tLe  gar- 
ments, the  blankets,  and  the  nets  of  our  ancestor's.  Jt  id 
true  we  occasionally  find  record  of  women  earning  wages 
in  other  occupations.8  Prof.  Rogers  has  pointed  out  that, 
in  the  fourteenth  century,  the  thatcher's  lielp,  or  "  homo," 
was  generally  a  woman.3  But,  speaking  broadly,  there 
was,  until  the  inventions  of  Watt,  H^rgreaves,  and 
Arkwright  antiquated  the  distaff  and  tho  fop  inning- wheel, 
work  enough  within  the  house  for  all  the  women  of  tha 
family  if  we  except  the  harvest  season,  when  agriculture 
was,  as  it  is  to-day  in  Europe,  the  occupation,  and  in 
Russia  the  equal  occupation,  of  both  sexes.4 

1  Pol.  Econ.,  i.  285. 

2  Brewing  and  baking  were  formerly  purely  domestic  operations, 
and  hence  were  performed  by  women,  as  the  feminine  termination  o\ 
the  words  brew-ster  and  back-ster,  like  web-ster  and  spin-ster,  indicates. 

3  By  37th  Edward  III.  women  were  exempted  from  the  prohibition 
against  exercising  more  than  one  craft. 

4  In  European  Russia  exclusive  of  the  Baltic  Province*  the  number 


380  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

But  no  longer  can  the  wife  and  daughter,  in  a  family 
where  children  must  needs  go  mainly  uncared  for,  and 
housekeeping  becomes  reduced  to  the  minimum  by  the 
scantiness  at  once  of  space  and  of  food,  do  their  equal 
share,  or  at  any  rate  seem  to  do  their  equal  share,  in  the 
support  of  the  household,  within  the  house.  All  which 
now  enters  into  domestic  consumption  must  come  in  from 
without ;  and  so  wife  and  daughter  must,  or  think  they 
must,  go  out  and  bring  in  a  part  of  it.  At  the  same  time 
the  extension  of  water  and  steam-power  has  made  the  labor 
of  women  useful  in  a  thousand  operations  for  which  their 
strength  was  formerly  inadequate.1  This  it  is  which  has 
driven  women  into  the  labor-market.  In  families  where 
bread  comes  hardly,  the  services  of  the  house  are  fore- 
gone, and  wife  and  daughter,  no  longer  working  as  of 

of  females  engaged  in  agriculture  is  reported  as  12,917,503  against 
13,444,842  males.  In  Prussia  the  number  of  farm-laborers  was  re- 
ported, in  1867,  as  follows  :  1,054,213  females,  2,232,741  males.  In 
England  the  census-tables  show  the  following  proportion  between  the 
sexes  in  agriculture  :  183,450  females,  1,264,031  males.  In  Scotland 
the  numbers  are  as  follows  :  50,464  females,  184,301  males.  In  the 
United  States  it  is  only  among  the  late  servile  population  of  the  South, 
and  occasionally  among  recently-arrived  foreigners  at  the  extreme 
West,  that  women  are  seen  laboring  in  the  fields,  even  during  ihe 
height  of  the  harvest  season.  But  women  are  probably  nowhere  em- 
ployed through  so  long  a  period  in  the  year  as  men.  Lord  Brabazon 
(Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes,  1872,  p.  44)  gives 
the  number  of  days  on  which  men  are  employed  in  France  at  day  labor 
in  agriculture,  as  200  ;  for  women  the  number  of  days  is  but  120.  In 
England,  as  Mr.  Purdy  says,  women  in  agriculture  are  "  employed  as 
supernumeraries  to  the  men,  and  are  only  taken  on  at  bupy  times." 
Arthur  Young  gives  the  following  account  of  the  Palatines  settled  in 
Ireland  :  "  The  women  are  very  industrious,  reap  the  corn,  plough  tlie 
ground  sometimes,  and  do  whatever  work  may  be  going  on  ;  they  also 
spin  and  weave,  and  make  the  children  do  the  same.  .  .  .  The  industry 
of  the  women  is  a  perfect  contrast  to  the  Irish  ladies  in  the  cabins,  who 
can  not  be  persuaded,  on  any  consideration,  even  to  make  hay,  it  not 
being  the  custom  of  the  country  ;  yet  they  bind  corn  and  do  other  work 
more  laborious."  (Pinkerton,  iii.  849,  850.) 

1  "Whereas  the  workman,"  says  M.  Jules  Simon,  in  L'Ottvriere, 
"  was  once  an  intelligent  force,  he  is  now  only  an  intelligence  direct- 
ing a  force — that  of  steam — and  the  immediate  consequence  of  the 
change  has  been  to  replace  men  by  women,  because  women  are  cheaper 
and  can  direct  the  steam  force  with  equal  efficiency." 


WOMAN'S  WAGES. 


881 


old  for  the  head  of  the  house,  go  out  to  seek  strange  em- 
ployers and  be  jostled  in  public  places.  Shame  on  the 
man,  if  he  be  man,  who  will  not  gladly  give  them  room ! 

Coincidently  with  this  great  industrial  change,  involv- 
ing the  necessity  of  wives  and  daughters  contributing 
by  wage  labor  to  the  support  of  the  family,  have  oc- 
curred social  changes,  of  scarcely  less  importance,  which 
have  resulted  in  a  steady  increase  in  the  proportion1  of 
women  who  are  wholly  dependent  on  themselves  for  main- 
tenance. What  these  social  changes  are  I  need  not  point 
out ;  the  result  itself  is  patent,  palpable,  and  needs  no  prool 

I  have  spoken  of  wife  and  daughter  entering  the  mar- 
ket of  wage  labor,  as  a  necessity  resulting  from  the  social 
and  industrial  changes  indicated.  And  so,  in  a  melan- 
choly proportion  of  cases,  it  is.  Yet  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  it  is  sometimes  accepted  as  a  necessity  where 
more  courage  and  patience  and  a  broader  view  of  self- 
interest  would  prove  that  this  might  be  avoided  ;  and  in 
such  a  case  it  would  often  be  truer  economy  to  forego 
wages  to  be  earned  at  the  expense  of  leaving  the  house 
uncared  for.  "  I  find,"  says  Mr.  Eraser,  Assistant  Com- 
missioner on  the  Employment  of  Women  and  Children  in 
Agriculture,  "  that  in  my  own  parish,  in  Berkshire,  the 
women  have  a  sort  of  proverb  that  '  there's  only  four- 
pence  a  year  difference  between  what  she  gets  who  goes 

1  These  causes  operate  with  much  greater  force  in  some  countries 
than  in  others.  The  following  table  shows  the  number  of  spinsters 
in  each  100,000  women  in  England  and  in  Scotland  severally,  as  by 
the  census  of  1871.  I  only  insert  the  figures  for  the  period  20-65. 


Period  of  Life. 

England. 

Scotland. 

Period  of  Life. 

England. 

Scotland. 

20-25 

65,160 

73,790 

45-50 

12,373 

20,150 

25-30 

35,622 

44,290 

50-55 

11,694 

19,917 

3(>-35 

22,365 

30,145 

55-60 

10,884 

19,211 

35-40 

16,844 

25,011 

60-65 

10,905 

20,343 

40-45 

14,150 

21,866 

England  annually  celebrates  83  marriages  for  every  10,000  inhabi* 
tants  ;  Scotland  only  70. 


382  TEE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

out  to  work  and  wliat  she  gets  who  stays  at  home,  and 
she  who  stays  at  home  wins  it?  "  ' 

"With  something  of  exaggeration  there  is,  no  doubt, 
much  of  truth  in  this  proverb  of  the  Berkshire  women. 
In  the  eagerness  to  increase  the  family  income  it  is  not 
sufficiently  considered  that,  in  the  absence  of  the  wife  and 
mother,  great  loss  must  necessarily  be  sustained  in  the 
expenditure  of  that  income ;  and  secondly,  that  the  ill- 
effects  on  the  health  of  the  family,  on  the  duration  of  the 
laboring  power,  and  on  the  moral  elements  of  industry 
may  be  sufficient  in  many  cases  to  offset  the  nominal  gain 
achieved  by  stripping  the  house  of  its  service  and  depriv- 
ing the  household  of  their  proper  care.  The  failure  to 
appreciate  that  a  penny  saved  is  a  penny  earned,  lies  at 
the  bottom  of  many  a  far-reaching  mistake  in  domestic 
life  as  in  productive  industry.  Waste  in  food,  clothing, 
and  utensils  ;  waste  in  laboring  force  through  ill-prepared 
and  ill-preserved  food ;  waste  of  the  vital  endowment  of 
the  rising  generation  through  lack  of  that  constant  care 
which  is  the  essential  condition  of  well-being  in  child- 
hood ;  waste  of  character  and  the  formation  of  indolent 
and  vicious  habits  through  neglect  to  instruct  and  train 
the  young,  and  through  making  the  house  cheerless  and 
distasteful  to  the  mature :  the  waste  in  these  and  many 
other  forms  which  the  entry  of  the  wife  and  daughter  on 
wage  labor  necessarily  implies,  in  greater  or  less  degree, 
will  surely  balance  the  addition  of  many  shillings  a  week 
to  the  family  income.8 

1  Report  of  1867-8,  p.  17,  n. 

"  The  wear  and  tear  of  a  neglected  home,"  says  Mr.  R.  Smith  Baker, 
"  is  greater  than  the  income  which  the  wife's  labor  adds  to  the  weekly 
means  ;  and  he  who  can  earn  enough  and  to  spare  ought  to  feel  it  a 
degradation  for  the  wife  of  his  bosom  to  mingle  in  these  dangerous 
assemblies.  Moreover,  a  workingman's  family  is  his  wealth  when 
well  brought  up  ;  his  bane  when  sickly  and  unhealthy." 

2  The  disposition  to  allow  married  women  to  undertake  paid  labor 
in  public  places  varies  greatly  in  different  communities.     Mr.  Carey  in 
his  Essay  on  Wages  (1835)  states  that  out  of  one  thousand  females  in 
the  Lawrence  Factory  at  Lowell,  there  were  but  eleven  married  wo- 


WOMAN'S  WAGES.  383 

Yet,  after  all,  there  is  an  increasing  multitude  of  women 
who,  through  having  no  house  to  keep,  or  through  the 
straitness  of  the  family  means,  have  no  choice  but  to  en- 
ter the  mill  or  the  shop,  and  submit  to  the  rude  bustlings 
of  the  market-place — and  room  has  not  been  made  for 
them. 

It  may  sound  strangely  that  even  in  the  United  States, 
where  it  is  of  general  consent  that  women  are  treated 
with  higher  relative  consideration  than  in  any  other  coun- 
try in  the  world,  respect  and  sympathy  for  them  are  want- 
ing in  such  a  degree  as  to  deprive  them  ot  any  part  of 
their  equitable  wages.  I  speak,  however,  of  respect  and 
sympathy  for  women  as  laborers.  In  their  "  sphere,"  to 
use  the  phrase  which  so  exasperates  the  advocates  of 
suffrage  without  regard  to  sex,  women  have  always  re- 
ceived homage  and  service,  but  as  wage-laborers  in  the 
public  market  they  have  suffered  not  a  little  in  the  past. 
This  has  not  been  from  want  of  chivalry,  but  from  defects 


men  (p.  88,  n.)  The  proportion  in  these  later  days  is  much  greater.  I 
am  indebted  to  tLe  Hon.  Wm.  P.  Haines  for  the  information  that  of 
1506  and  1203  persons  employed  respectively  by  the  Pepperell  Manu- 
facturing Company  and  by  the  Laconia  Company,  both  of  Biddeford, 
Me.,  engaged  in  cotton-spinning,  105  in  the  former  and  135  in  the  lat- 
ter were  married  women. 

Much  indisposition  to  allow  the  wife  to  go  into  the  mill  is  seen  in 
the  flax  and  jute  districts  of  Scotland.  Of  784  women  employed  in  the 
mills  at  Arbroath,  only  5£  per  cent  were  married.  "  It  appears,"  say 
the  commissioners  of  the  Local  Government  Board  (1873),  "  to  be  con- 
sidered somewhat  discreditable  for  a  woman  to  work  in  a  factory  after 
her  marriage,  and  she  does  so  only  under  the  pressure  of  a  stern  ne- 
cessity." At  the  same  time  almost  28  per  cent  of  the  females  of  Scotland 
were  actually  bread-winners.  This  is  due  to  the  excess  of  spinsters 
previously  noted.  The  married  women  employed  in  the  textile  manu- 
factories of  England  and  Wales  are  estimated  by  Mr.  W.  C.  Taylor, 
Inspector  of  Factories,  at  about  150,000  (Soc.  Sc.  Trans.,  1874,  p.  571). 
"  Married  women  in  factories  are  exceptional,"  says  Mr.  Phipps  in  his 
Report  of  1870  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes  of  Wurtem- 
burg  (p.  223). 

M.  LePlay,  in  his  work  on  the  Organization  of  Labor,  dwells  strongly 
on  the  economical  advantages  of  leaving  the  mother  and  daughter  at 
the  fireside. 


884  THE  WAGES  QUESTION". 

of  education.  The  need  that  woman  is  coming  to  have,  in 
modern  life,  to  enter  the  competitions  of  industry,  has  not 
become  sufficiently  familiar  to  the  public  mind  ;  the  idea 
lias  been  strange,  her  image  in  such  garb  unwelcome.1 
That  public  opinion  which  should  open  to  her  avenues  of 
employment ;  which  should  be  a  strong  support  to  her  in 
her  demands  for  fair  remuneration  ;  which  should  be  a  de- 
fence to  her  in  her  close  pursuit  of  employment,  in  her 
urgent  and  persistent  application  for  work,  in  her  neces- 
sary exposure  to  gaze  and  comment,  and  in  her  contact 
with  much  that  is  strange  and  rude,  lias  not  yet  been  cre- 
ated in  such  a  degree  as  to  give  to  the  sex  all  that  freedom 
of  industrial  movement  which  might  be  consistent  with 
feminine  purity  and  delicacy.  We  have  not  yet  come  to 
appreciate  the  obligation  which  their  necessity  imposes  upon 
us,  as  men  and  gentlemen,  to  follow  them  with  our  ear- 
nest, active  sympathy,  and  to  protect  and  champion  them 
not  less  in  their  labor  than  at  dance  or  festival. 

And  what  is  the  remedy  ?  Agitation  and  the  diffusion 
of  correct  ideas.  Let  gifted  women  continue,  as  in  the 
past,  to  appeal  for  public  respect  and  sympathy  for  their 
sisters  in  their  work ;  let  the  schools  teach  that  public  opin- 
ion may  powerfully  affect  wages,  and  that  nothing  which 
depends  on  human  volition  is  "  inexorable ;"  let  the  sta- 
tistics of  women's  wages  be  carefully  gathered  and  persist- 
ently held  up  to  view.  Efforts  like  these  will  not  fail  to 
strengthen  and  support  woman  in  her  resort  to  market, 
thus  enabling  her  the  better  to  realize  the  condition  upon 
which  alone  she  can  expect  to  receive  the  highest  wages 
which  the  existing  state  of  industry  will  allow. 

J  "  Fancy,"  says  Miss  Emily  Faithfull,  "a  gentleman  seeking  remu- 
nerative work  sub  rosa  !  And  yet  this  is  the  state  of  mind  in  which  so 
many  ladies  come  to  our  Industrial  and  Educational  Bureau,  that  they 
even  refuse  to  state  their  requirements  to  the  lady  manager,  but  insist 
upon  seeing  me  personally  on  '  strictly  private  and  confidential  business.' 
Public  opinion  is  to  be  blamed  for  this  ;  and  unless  the  press  will  help 
us  to  strike  a  blow  at  the  false  pride  now  in  our  midst,  parents  will  still 
neglect  to  place  their  daughters  in  honorable  independent  positions." — • 
Letter  to  the  London  Times,  1876. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

MAT   ANT   ADVANTAGE   BE    ACQUIRED   BT  THE   WAGES    CLASS 
THROUGH    STRIKES    OR    TRADES-UNIONS? 

IT  was  Been  in  our  analysis  of  the  operation  of  competi- 
tion (Chapter  X.)  that  the  members  of  the  wages  class  on 
their  side,  and  the  members  of  the  employing  class  on 
theirs,  act  singly,  each  for  himself,  with  individual  spon- 
taneity ;  and  that  out  of  this  complete  mobility  of  the 
individual,  in  subjection  only  to  his  own  sense  of  his 
own  interest,  issue  the  highest  conceivable  industrial 
order  and  an  absolutely  right  division  of  burdens  and 
diffusion  of  benefits. 

The  question  in  the  present  chapter  is,  whether,  there 
being  an  acknowledged  failure  of  competition,  greater  or 
less,  on  the  side  of  the  wages  class,  from  ignorance,  inertia, 
poverty,  or  the  undue  anxiety  of  individuals  to  snatch, 
each  for  himself,  at  the  first  employment  offered,  any 
thing  can  be  added  to  the  real  power  of  this  class  in  com- 
petition, through  restraints  voluntarily  adopted.  The 
perfect  reasonableness  of  supposing  that  some  advantage 
might  be  derived  by  the  wages  class  from  such  arrange- 
ments, will  be  seen  if  we  compare  their  situation  with 
that  of  an  audience  seeking  to  escape  from  a  crowded  the- 
atre which  has  taken  fire.  There  may  be  time  enough  to 
allow  the  safe  discharge  of  every  soul,  and  in  that  case 
the  individual  interest  of  each  person  clearly  coincides 


386  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

with  the  interest  of  the  audience  taken  collectively — 
namely,  that  he  should  fall-in  precisely  according  to  his 
present  situation  relative  to  the  common  place  of  exit. 
Yet  we  know  that,  human  nature  being  what  it  is,  panic 
is  likely  to  arise  and  a  crazy  rush  ensue,  each  trying  to 
get  before  his  neighbor,  with  the  certain  result  that  the 
discharge  of  the  whole  mass  will  be  impeded,  and  the 
strong  probability  that  not  a  few  will  be  trampled  to 
death.  If  now,  upon  men  in  such  a  situation,  discipline 
can  be  imposed,  and  the  procedure  which  is  for  the  inte- 
rest alike  of  each  and  of  all  can  be  allowed  to  go  forward 
steadily,  swiftly,  and  surely  under  authoritative  direction, 
a  great  deal  of  misery  may  be  prevented.  Discipline,  re- 
straint, create  no  force,  but  they  may  save  much  waste. 

In  just  such  a  situation,  say  those  who  are  the  professed 
advocates  of  the  "  cause  of  labor,"  is  the  wages  class  in 
many  if  not  in  most  communities.  Grant  that  the  true 
interest  of  each  member  consists  with  the  interest  of  the 
whole,  no  one  will  assert  that  each  man's  interest,  as  he 
may  understand  it  and  be  prepared  to  act  on  it,  neces- 
sarily consist^  with  the  good  of  all.  When  industry 
slackens  and  employment  becomes  scarce,  there  is  the 
same  danger  to  the  mass,  from  the  headlong  haste  and 
greed  of  individuals,  as  in  the  case  of  the  theatre  just  re- 
ferred to.  A  mistaken  sense  of  self-interest  may  even 
pervert  competition  from  its  true  ends,  and  make  its  force 
destructive.  If,  then,  it  is  urged,  bodies  of  labor  can  be 
put  under  discipline  so  that  they  shall  proceed  in  order  and 
with  temper,  great  injury  may  be  averted  :  injury  which 
once  wrought  may  become  permanent. 

There  is,  surely,  nothing  unreasonable  in  this  claim. 
Let  us,  therefore,  without  prejudice  proceed  to  consider 
the  agencies  by  which,  under  this  plan,  it  is  proposed  to 
meet  the  infirmities  of  the  laboring  classes. 

The  issue  is  not  whether  joint  action  is  superior  to  the 
individual  action  of  persons  enlightened  as  to  their  indus- 
trial interests,  but  whether  joint  action  may  not  be  better 


STRIKES  AND  THE  WAGE-FUND.  387 

than  the  tumultuous  action  of  a  mass,  each  pursuing  his 
individual  interest  with  more  or  less  of  ignorance,  fear, 
and  passion. 

The  question  of  strikes  has  generally  been  disposed  of  by 
economists  with  a  summary  reference  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
wage-fund.  Strikes  could  not  increase  the  wage-fund, 
therefore  they  could  not  enhance  wages.  If  they  should  ap- 
pear to  raise  the  rate  in  any  trade,  this  must  be  due  either 
to  a  corresponding  loss  in  the  regularity  of  employment 
or  to  an  equivalent  loss,  in  regularity  or  in  rate,  by 
some  other  trade  or  trades  occupying  a  position  of  econo- 
mical disadvantage.  Hence,  strikes  could  not  benefit  the 
wages  class.  But  we  have  rid  ourselves  of  the  incubus  of 
the  wage-fund;  and  the  question  of  strikes  is,  therefore, 
with  us  an  open  question  as  yet.  "We  have  seen1  that  the 
amount  of  wages  received  by  the  laborer  may  be  insuffi- 
cient to  furnish  the  food  necessary  to  his  maximum  effi- 
ciency, and  that  an  increase  of  wages  might,  by  increasing 
his  laboring  power,  increase  the  product  not  only  propor- 
tionally, but  even  more  than  proportionally,  under-feeding, 
whether  of  men  or  cattle,  being  admittedly  false  economy. 
If  a  strike  should  enable  a  body  of  laborers  to  secure  such 
an  advance  against  the  reluctance  of  their  employers,  it 
might  easily  turn  out  that  the  masters  would  not  only  not 
be  injured,  but  would  be  benefited  in  the  result.  The 
same  would  be  true  of  an  advance  of  wages  which  allow- 
ed the  workmen  to  obtain  more  light  and  warmth  and  bet- 
ter air  in  more  commodious  dwellings.  The  same  might 
prove  to  be  the  case  with  an  advance  of  wages  which 
merely  stimulated  the  social  ambition  of  the  workmen,  the 
wages  of  labor  being,  in  the  language  of  Adam  Smith, 
"  the  encouragement  of  industry,  which,  like  every  other 
human  quality,  improves  in  proportion  to  the  encourage- 
ment it  receives."  The  same  would  probably  be  the  re- 
sult, though  after  some  delay,  of  an  advance  of  wages 


1  Pp.  53-58 


388  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

which  enabled  workmen  to  send  their  children  to  school, 
thus  bringing  them  into  the  mill  or  shop,  a  few  years  later, 
far  more  intelligent  and  physically  more  capable  than  if 
they  had  been  put  at  work  at  seven  or  eight  years  of  age. 
It  might  easily  prove,  according  to  the  principles  which 
have  been  laid  down  respecting  the  efficiency  of  labor,  that 
such  expenditures  would  be  found  to  be  the  best  invest- 
ment which  the  employer  ever  made  of  the  same  amount 
of  money,  giving  him  industrial  recruits  of  a  much  higher 
order. 

I  might  multiply  illustrations  showing  how  an  advance 
of  wages  which  masters  were  unwilling  to  concede,  and 
which  workmen  through  their  isolated  and  mutually  jea- 
lous and  suspicious  action  would  be  unable  to  command, 
if  effected  through  united  action  might  prove  to  be  for 
the  interest  of  both  masters  and  men. 

By  others,  again,  the  question  of  strikes  is  dismissed 
with  the  assertion  that  they  generally  fail  of  their  objects. 
"Never,  in  any  case,"  says  Mr.  R.  W.  Hopper,  "has  an 
extensive  strike  resulted  in  an  advance  of  wages."1  To 
a  request  to  act  in  a  mediation  between  masters  and  men, 
Lord  Cranworth  replied,  "  In  the  game,  so  to  say,  of  com- 
bination the  workmen  eventually  fail."2  M.  Theodore 
Fix,  in  his  work  Les  Classes  Ouvrieres*  writes :  "  After 

1  Fortnightly  Review,  August,  1865. 

5  Statistical  Journal,  xxx.  5. 

8  P.  194. 

Doubtless  a  much  larger  proportion  of  the  earlier  than  of  the 
later  strikes  in  England  were  attended  by  immediate  success.  The 
reason  may  be  presumed  to  be  that,  after  the  repeal  of  the  Combinations 
Acts  in  1824,  the  workmen  struck  simply  for  bread  enough  to  eat. 
They  had  been  held  down  by  law  and  ground  by  an  unequal  competi- 
tion till  they  were  reduced  below  the  economical  point  of  subsistence. 
As  to  this  the  testimony  of  all  reports  is  unanimous.  Strikes  made 
for  such  a  palpable  cause  are  more  likely  to  succeed  than  those  which 
are  made,  as  many  of  the  later  ones  have  been,  for  doubtful  reasons, 
on  ill-chosen  occasions,  or  for  the  enforcement  of  trades-unions  rules 


ARE  STRIKES  SUCCESSFUL?  389 

making   vast   sacrifices,  the  workmen    almost  invariably 
succumb." 

Granting  that  this  is  so  in  the  sense  in  which  the  terms 
are  used — that  is,  that  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  work- 
men making  a  demand  and  seeking  to  enforce  it  by  a  strike, 
are  beaten,  and,  after  the  exhaustion  of  their  resources,  have 
to  go  to  work  again  on  their  master's  terms1 — is  this  quite 
conclusive  of  the  whole  question  ?  The  argument  used 
against  strikes  is,  it  will  be  observed,  much  the  same  as  that 
which  was  formerly  employed  by  reactionary  essayists,  and 
even  admitted  with  reluctance  by  many  liberal  writers,  in 
proof  of  the  failure  of  the  French  Revolution.  The  States- 
General  had  been  succeeded  by  the  Assembly ;  the  Assembly 
by  the  Convention ;  the  Convention  by  the  Directory  ;  the 
Directory  had  been  turned  out  by  the  First  Consul ;  the 
First  Consul  had  been  made  Consul  for  life  ;  the  Consul 
had  become  Emperor  ;  the  Emperor  had  been  driven  from 
France ;  and  after  an  interval  of  insolent  foreign  domina- 
tion, a  legitimate  prince,  unrestrained  by  a  single  constitu- 
tional check,  untrammelled  by  a  single  pledge,  led  back 
priest  and  noble,  unforgiving  and  unforgetting,  to  resume 
their  interrupted  license.  There  had  been  revolution  after 
revolution ;  constitution  after  constitution ;  there  had  been 
proscriptions,  confiscations,  and  massacres  ;  there  had  been 
untold  loss  of  blood  and  treasure ;  and  in  the  end  a  king 
had  returned  who  did  not  accept  a  constitution,  but  con- 
ferred a  charter. 

It  is  not  an  inspiring  thought  that  arguments  like  these 
were  for  a  whole  human  generation  held  sufficient  to  prove 
that  the  French  Revolution  was  a  mistake  and  a  failure ; 

which  must  appear  to  any  disinterested  person  as  void  of  sense  and 
against  common  justice. 

1  Prof.  Fawcett,  in  his  Political  Economy,  has  collected  a  number  of  in- 
stances of  strikes  immediately  successful.  The  best  succinct  account  of 
the  strike-movement  in  England  which  we  have  met  is  contained  in 
Ward's  Workmen  and  Wages.  The  same  work  also  contains  much  infor- 
mation respecting  strikes  and  trades-unions  on  the  Continent  of  Europe, 


390  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

for  we  know  now  that  the  Bourbons  were  restored  only  in 
seaming ;  that  the  restoration  of  the  old  regime  was  for- 
ever impossible.  The  king  and  the  princes  had  indeed 
returned,  the  same  race  besotted  with  the  vain  conceit  of 
divine  right;  they  led  back,  indeed,  the  same  train  of 
priests  and  nobles,  untaught  and  incapable  of  learning ; 
but  they  came  back,  not  to  the  same,  but  to  another 
France.  Is  it  not  conceivable  that  those  who  look  on  the 
submission  of  a  body  of  laborers  after  a  strike  as  a  proof 
that  their  entire  effort  has  been  fruitless,  may  commit  the 
same  mistake  as  those  who  looked  011  the  return  of 
Louis  X VIII.  as  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons  ?  But 
perhaps  another  insurrection,  political  in  form  but  indus- 
trial in  origin,  may  even  better  illustrate  this  point.  I  refer 
to  the  rising  of  the  peasantry  of  England  in  the  reign  of 
Richard  II.  "  The  rebellion ,''  says  Prof.  Rogers,1  "  was  put 
down,  but  the  demands  of  the  villains  were  silently  and 
effectually  accorded  ;  as  they  were  masters  for  a  week  of 
the  position,  the  dread  of  another  servile  war  promoted 
the  liberty  of  the  serf? 

Strikes  are  the  insurrections  of  labor.  Like  insurrec- 
tions in  the  political  body,  they  are  a  purely  destructive 
agency.  There  is  no  creative  or  healing  virtue  in  them. 
Yet,  as  an  insurrection  may  destroy  political  institutions 
which  have  outlived  their  usefulness,  and  have  become 
first  senseless  and  then  pernicious,  thus  clearing  the  way 
for  an  after-work  of  harmonious  construction,  so  a  strike 
may  have  the  effect  to  break  up  a  crust  of  custom  which 
has  formed  over  the  remuneration  of  a  class  of  laborers, 
or  to  break  through  a  combination  of  employers  to  with- 
stand an  advance  of  wages,  where  the  isolated  efforts  of 
the  individuals  of  the  wages  class,  acting  with  imperfect 
knowledge  and  under  a  fear  of  personal  proscription, 
would  be  wholly  inadequate  to  accomplish  those  objects, 

1  Hist.  Agr.  and  Prices,  i.  8. 


JUSTIFICATION  OF  STRIKES.  391 

But  a  strike  can  only  justify  itself  by  its  results. l  Unless 
it  is  to  make  way  for  a  better  order,  it  is  waste,  and  waste 
of  the  worse  sort,  since  not  only  is  a  great  loss  of  pro- 
duction incurred,2  but  bad  habits  are  likely  to  be  formed 
in  a  period  of  enforced  idleness,  and  bad  blood  certain  to 
be  generated  by  the  contest. 

Insurrections  mark  the  first  stages  of  the  movement 
towards  political  freedom.  Happy  are  the  people  who 
have  got  past  insurrections,  and  can  make  their  further 
progress  "  with  even  step  and  slow."  Strikes  are  only  of 
unquestionable  utility  in  the  first  stages  of  the  elevation 
of  masses  of  labor  long  abused  and  deeply  abased.  Happy 
is  the  wages  class  when  it  has  acquired  that  individual 
and  mutual  intelligence  and  that  activity  of  industrial 
movement  which  put  them  beyond  the  necessity  of  such 
a  brutal  resort!  Yet  I  can  not  conceive  how  one  can 
look  at  the  condition  of  the  manufacturing  operatives  as 
they  were  left  at  the  repeal  of  the  iniquitous  Combina- 
tions acts  in  1824,  and  question  that  the  early  strikes  in. 
England  were  essential  to  the  breaking  up  of  the  power 
of  custom  and  of  fear  over  the  minds  of  the  working 
classes,  habituated  to  submission  under  the  terror  of  laws 
now  universally  recognized  as  oppressive,  unaccustomed 
to  concerted  action,  illiterate,  jealous,  suspicious,  tax- 
ridden,  and  poverty-stricken.  "What  but  some  great  strug- 
gle could  have  taught  them  the  self-confidence  and  readi- 
ness for  self-assertion  which  should  overcome  that  fearful 
inertia  ?  What  else  would  have  impressed  the  employing 


1  Not  necessarily,  as  we  have  shown  on  a  preceding  page,  by  its  im- 
mediate results. 

2  The  loss  to  production  by  strikes  is  often  grossly  overestimated. 
Not  a  few  strikes  take  place  because  of  a  threatened  reduction  of 
wages  in  consequence  of  previous  over-production,  and  the  strike  re- 
sults in  clearing  the  market  more  thoroughly  than  would  be  done 
otherwise.     Then,  again,  the  enforced  inactivity  of  a  strike  for  higher 
wages  is  often  succeeded  by  an  increased  activity,  which  does  some- 
thing to  make  good  the  loss  of  time. 


392  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

classes  witli  a  due  respect  for  their  laborers,  or  inspired 
that  lively  sense  of  the  possible  consequences  of  with- 
standing a  just  demand  which  is  essential  to  competition 
in  any  true  sense  ?  "  Masters  are  always  and  everywhere 
in  a  sort  of  tacit,  but  constant  and  uniform,  combination 
not  to  raise  the  wages  of  labor  above  their  actual  rate."  1 
It  is  well  enough  for  the  peace  of  industrial  society  and 
the  mutual  understanding  of  all  parties,  that  masters 
should  be  made  to  know  that  two  can  play  at  that  game. 
There  is  nothing  to  quicken  the  sense  of  justice  and 
equity  like  the  consciousness  that  unjust  and  inequitable 
demands  or  acts  are  likely  to  be  promptly  and  fearlessly 
resisted  or  resented. 


LEGISLATION   AGAINST    STRIKES    AND    COMBINATIONS. 

"We  have  seen  that  by  the  Statute  of  Laborers  in  Eng- 
land, workmen  were  not  allowed  to  ask  or  receive  wages 
above  a  fixed  amount,  not  even,  on  pain  of  imprisonment, 
to  accept  "  meat,  drink,  or  other  courtesy"  (25th  Edward 
III.)  in  addition  to  the  stipulated  sum.  It  will  readily 
be  believed  that  combinations  of  workmen  for  increase  of 
wages  were  not  favored  of  the  law.  By  statute  of  2d  and 
3d  Henry  YL,  it  was  premised  that  "  artificers,  handi- 
craftsmen, and  laborers  have  made  confederacies  and 
promises,  and  have  sworn  mutual  oaths  not  only  that  they 
should  not  meddle  one  with  another's  work,  and  perform 
and  finish  that  another  hath  begun,  but  also  to  constitute 
and  appoint  how  much  work  they  shall  do  in  a  day,  and 
what  hours  and  times  they  shall  work ;"  and  therefore  it 
was  enacted  that  "  if  any  artificers,  workmen,  or  laborers 
do  conspire,  covenant,  or  promise  together,  or  make 
oaths  that  they  shall  not  make  or  do  their  works  but  at 
a  certain  price  and  rate,  or  shall  not  enterprise  or  take 
upon  them  to  finish  that  another  had  begun,  or  shall  do 

1  Adam  Smith,  Wealth  of  Nations,  ii.,  70. 


LAWS  AGAINST  COMBINATIONS.  393 

but  a  certain  work  in  a  day,  or  shall  not  work  but  at  cer- 
tain hours  and  times,"  every  person  so  offending  should  be 
visited  in  severe  penalties,  the  punishment  for  the  third 
offence  being  loss  of  ears  and  infamy.  This  statute  was 
followed  thick  by  others,  so  that  the  act  of  1824  which 
exempts  from  criminal  responsibility1  meetings  and  com- 
binations for  fixing  wages  and  altering  the  hours  of  work, 
provided  no  violence,  threats,  intimidation,  molestation, 
or  obstruction  be  done  or  offered  towards  masters  or 
other  workmen,  repeals,  if  I  have  rightly  counted  them, 
twenty-eight  acts,  representing  the  wisdom  of  Parliaments 
in  the  reigns  of  ten  different  kings  or  queens. 

While  the  law  of  England  thus,  by  direct  inhibition, 
sought  to  reduce  to  the  minimum  competition  for  labor, 
no  statute,  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  made  even  the  de- 
cent pretence  of  restraining  masters  from  combinations, 
until  the  beginning  of  the  present  century.  u  We  have 
no  acts  of  Parliament  against  combining  to  lower  the 
price  of  work,"2  said  Adam  Smith,  "  but  many  against 
combining  to  raise  it."  By  statute  of  40th  George  III. 
(c.  106),  however,  "all  contracts,  covenants,  and  agree- 
ments whatever,  in  writing  or  not  in  writing,  made  or  to 
be  made,  by  or  between  any  masters  or  other  persons,  for 
reducing  the  wages  of  workmen,  or  adding  to  or  altering 
the  usual  hours  or  time  of  working,  or  for  increasing  the 
quantity  of  work,"  were  declared  unlawful,  under  a 
penalty  of  £20. 

This  act  is  also  specially  noticeable  for  two  provisions : 
one,  that  no  master  should  act  as  justice  of  the  peace 

'"Yet  they  were  not  made  lawful."— Sir  William  Erie,  Trades- 
Unions,  p.  26. 

A  combination  of  workmen  is  thus,  in  England,  still  to  be  held  to 
examination  in  the  light  of  the  general  principles  of  the  law  by  which 
unreasonable  restraint  of  trade  is  prohibited.  '  The  practical  applica- 
tion of  these  principles,"  Sir  William  remarks,  "  lies  in  indictment  for 
violation  of  duty  towards  the  public,  or  in  action  for  violation  of  a 
private  right."  (Ibid.) 

3  Wealth  of  Nations,  i.  70. 


394  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

for  executing  any  of  its  provisions  (sec.  xvi.),  a  conces- 
sion not  yet  made  in  respect  to  disputes  between  agri- 
cultural laborers  and  their  employers ;  the  other,  that 
"  whereas  it  will  be  a  great  convenience  and  advantage  to 
masters  and  workmen  engaged  in  manufactures  that  a 
cheap  and  summary  mode  be  established  for  settling  all 
disputes  that  may  arise  between  them  respecting  wages 
and  work,"  arbitrators  should  be  appointed,  under  legal 
sanction,  for  determining  the  respective  rights  of  the  two 
parties  in  case  of  controversy.  This  last  well-intentioned 
provision  was,  however,  admitted  by  an  act  of  four  years 
later  (44th  George  III.,c.  87)  to  have  failed  of  its  purpose. 

But  in  1824  (5th  George  IV.,  c.  95)  Parliament  repealed 
all  the  statutes  which  prohibited  combinations  of  work- 
men. In  1825  this  measure  was  perfected  (6th  George  IT., 
c.  129)  under  the  lead  of  Huskisson,  who  announced  the 
broad  principle  that  "  every  man  is  entitled  to  carry  that 
talent  which  nature  has  given  him,  and  those  acquire- 
ments which  his  diligence  has  obtained,  to  any  market  in 
which  he  is  likely  to  obtain  the  highest  remuneration." 

In  France,  combinations  of  workmen  for  the  purpose  of 
influencing  wages  were  prohibited  with  great  severity  by 
the  Penal  Code  of  1810,  which  also  punished,  though  with 
less  severity,  combinations  of  employers  for  the  purpose 
of  unjustly  depressing  wages.  By  the  law  of  1849  the 
penalties  decreed  against  combinations  of  masters  and  of 
workmen  were  equalized.  By  the  law  of  May  25th, 
1864,  combinations  free  from  violence  or  show  of  vio- 
lence were  sanctioned.  "  Le  point  de  depart  de  la  loi," 
said  M.  Ollivier,  who  reported  the  bill,  "  est  celui-ci : 
Liberte  absolue  des  coalitions,  repression  rigoureuse  de 
la  violence  et  de  la  fraude."1  The  act  of  1864  did  not 
fail  of  its  purpose  through  being  neglected  by  the  work- 
ing classes,  who  seemed  to  accept  the  permission  to  strike 
as  a  sort  of  legislative  recommendation. 

'Chapter  xii.  of  the  report  of  M.  Ducarre,  already  cited,  contains 
the  text  of  the  laws  of  1810,  1849,  and  1864  relating  to  combinations. 


STRIKES  IN  EUROPE.  395 

"  There  is  scarcely  a  trade  in  France,"  said  Mr.  Ward, 
writing  in  1868,  "  of  which,  during  the  last  three  years, 
the  members  have  not  combined  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
creasing the  rate  of  wages  and  diminishing  the  hours  of 
labor,  and  their  efforts  to  this  end  have  usually  met  with 
success." J 

In  Belgium,  strikes  are  freely  resorted  to,  especially  in 
Brussels,2  yet  perhaps  nowhere  is  the  workman's  indus- 
trial responsibility  for  the  abuse  of  this  power  more  direct 
and  certain  than  in  this  kingdom,  owing  to  its  geographi- 
cal position  and  its  peculiar  commercial  relations. 

From  the  Netherlands  M.  Locock  reports :  "  Such  a 
thing  as  a  strike  is  here  almost  unknown.  Once  or  twice, 
indeed,  it  has  been  attempted,  but  it  met  with  little  sym- 
pathy, and  was  speedily  suppressed." 3  The  reason  for  the 
non-appearance  of  the  strike  movement  in  this  kingdom 
is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  provisions  of  the  Penal  Code 
of  1810  prohibitory  of  combinations  (arts.  415  and  416), 
which  we  have  seen  were  repealed  in  France  by  the  law  of 
25th  May,  1864,  are  still  in  force  here. 

Throughout  North  Germany  liberty  to  combine  was 
granted  by  articles  152  and  153  of  the  Industrial  Code 
(Gewerbe-Ordnung 4)  of  June  21st,  1869,  and  the  same 
provisions  have  since  been  extended  throughout  the 
Empire  :  a  vast  change,  whether  we  consider  the  extent  of 
territory  and  of  population  affected,  or  the  severity  of  the 
regime  abolished  by  the  Code  of  1869.5 

Jn  Austria  strikes  are  prohibited,  and  rarely  occur. 
Ringleaders  may,  by  the  Code  (art.  481),  be  punished 
with  imprisonment,  or  expelled  from  the  empire. 

1  Workmen  and  Wages,  p.  255. 

2  Mr.  J.  G.  Kennedy's  report  (Textile  Factories,  1873,  p.  24,  25). 
8  Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes,  1870,  p.  25. 

4  The  full  text  of  this  Code  will  be  found  (in  translation)  in  the  Re- 
port on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes  of  Prussia,  1870,  ppt 
101-141. 

6 1  speak  generally.  As  I  understand  the  matter,  combinations  had 
been  legalized  in  Prussia  four  or  five  years  previously. 


396  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

From  Norway,  II.B.M.  Consul-General  Crowe  reports  : 
"  No  instance  is  on  record  of  any  combination  having 
occurred  to  coerce  masters  with  the  view  to  obtain  higher 
wages."  1 

In  Denmark,  Mr.  Strachey  reports  that  strikes  seldom 
occur.  "  In  1848  the  printers  struck  and  received  an  ad- 
vance in  wages  ;  in  1865  the  bricklayers  and  carpenters 
struck  for  ten  days  ;  in  1867  the  carpenters  again  struck, 
with  the  result  of  an  additional  twopence  per  week  for 
their  trouble."2 

In  Italy,  the  Penal  Code  is  stringently  prohibitive  of 
combinations  and  strikes,  the  penalty  being  three  months' 
imprisonment  to  all  participants,  and  six  months'  to  ring- 
leaders.3 Strikes,  however,  occur  in  spite  of  the  law. 
Mr.  Ward  gives  a  short  list4  of  them,  some  successful, 
some  unsuccessful,  some  resulting  in  compromise.  The 
more  recent  statements  of  Mr.  Herries 6  show  no  tendency 
to  an  increase  in  their  number  or  severity. 

In  Russia,  though  there  is  no  general  organization  of 
the  laboring  classes,  Mr.  Egerton 6  reports  :  "  Strikes  are 
by  no  means  unusual" 

TRADES-UNIONS. 

The  expediency  of  trades-unions  is  usually  discussed  as 
if  connected  with  the  expediency  of  strikes  so  directly  and 
intimately  that  a  decision  upon  one  would  be  conclusive 
in  respect  to  the  other.  Thus,  many  persons,  having 
proved  to  their  own  satisfaction  that  strikes  have  had  a 
great  agency  in  advancing  wages,  have  assumed  that  the 
existence  of  trades-unions  is  thereby  justified.  Others, 

1  Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes,  1871,  p.  379. 

2  Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes,  1870,  p.  507. 
8H.B.M.  Consul  Colnaghi's  Report,  1871,  p.  284  (articles  385-7  of  the 

Code). 

4  Workmen  and  Wages,  p.  283. 
•1871,  pp.  209-248. 
•1873,  Textile  Factories,  p.  112. 


TRADES -UNIONS  AND  STRIKES.  397 

having  demonstrated,  as  they  think,  the  mischievous  ton- 
dency  of  trades-unions,1  have  carried  their  conclusions  out 
against  strikes  as  if  there  were  a  vital  connection  be- 
tween the  two  systems.  No  such  relation  in  principle 
exists.  Strikes  are,  as  has  been  said,  of  the  nature  of  in- 
surrection. Trades-unions  are  associations  for  facilitating 
insurrection,  like  secret  political  clubs,  and  the  desirability 
of  these  may  well  be  regarded  as  a  different  question. 
The  virtue  of  an  insurrection  is  that  it  comes  because  it 
must  come — comes  because  evils  have  grown  intolerable, 
and  to  destroy  is  better  than  to  conserve.  We  may  rec- 
ognize the  office  of  violence  in  breaking  up  an  utterly 
outworn  order  and  clearing  the  ground  for  a  reorganiza- 
tion of  society  and  industry,  yet  fail  to  recognize  an 
advantage  in  making  systematic  provision,  in  advance,  for 
the  easy  resort  to  violence.  Doubtless  we  might  say,  not 
only  that,  of  all  successful  insurrections,  those  have  been 
most  beneficent  in  their  results  which  have  broken  forth 
unprepared,  out  of  the  indignant  sense  of  wrongs  suffered 
and  of  burdens  borne  past  patience,  but  also  that,  as  a 
rule,  insurrections  are  more  likely  to  be  successful  when 
in  the  main  spontaneous.  It  is  not  meant  that  any  popu- 
lar rising  was  ever  unpreceded  by  more  or  less  of  con- 
ference among  the  natural  leaders  of  the  injured  classes. 
But  I  apprehend  that  those  risings  which  have  been  most 
elaborately  devised,  and  in  which  the  machinery  of  insur- 
rection has  been  most  extensively  employed,  are  generally 
those  which  have  most  signally  and  often  ignominiously 
failed.  There  is  a  double  reason  for  this :  on  the  one 
hand,  there  is  a  concert  in  the  common  sense  of  injury 
which  gives  a  wonderful  instantaneousness  to  the  action  of 
outraged  masses ;  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  often  a  singu- 
lar impotence  in  conspiracy.  But  this  is  by  the  way.  The 

1  "  Worse  even  than  plague,  pestilence,  or  famine,  combinations 
among  workmen  are  the  greatest  social  evil  which,  in  a  manufacturing 
or  mining  community,  afflicts  society." — Sir  A.  Alison  (History  of 
Europe,  xx.  206.) 


398  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

comparison  lias  been  introduced  only  to  enforce  the 
thought  that  the  proved  expediency  of  strikes  would  not 
carry  with  it  the  expediency  of  the  permanent  organiza- 
tion of  labor  for  the  initiation  and  conduct  of  strikes. 
Being  a  destructive  agency,  these  should  never  be  resorted 
to  except  in  a  real  and  serious  exigency  which  would, 
among  any  generous  and  manly  class  under  a  free  govern- 
ment, furnish  an  organization  for  the  occasion  more 
vital  and  apt  than  any  derived  from  a  state  of  industrial 
peace. 

But  this  assumes  that  the  body  of  the  working  classes  are 
at  least  tolerably  intelligent,  understanding  their  own  in- 
terests and  the  conditions  of  their  industry,  having  among 
them  men  of  natural  leadership,  capable  of  uniting  for  a 
common  cause,  and  of  remaining  firm  and  true  to  each 
other  in  enforcing  their  demands.  It  assumes,  moreover, 
that  a  considerable  proportion,  at  least,  of  these  classes 
have  something  in  the  way  of  accumulations  from  past  in- 
dustry, and,  as  a  consequence  of  this,  have  also  a  certain 
degree  of  credit  with  the  trading  class.  But  if,  as  is  the 
melancholy  fact  in  many  countries  of  Europe,  the  body  of 
laborers  are  found  in  a  condition,  no  matter  how  induced, 
of  dense  ignorance,  unaccustomed  to  the  communication 
of  thought,  and  to  association  for  political  or  other  pur- 
poses, with  only  here  and  there  a  laborer  so  fortunate  or 
so  wise  as  to  have  saved  any  thing  from  the  avails  of  past 
labor :  then  doubtless  they  must  be  long  drilled  to  subor- 
dination and  concert  of  action  in  associations  permanently 
maintained,  and  the  funds  requisite  for  the  initiation  and 
conduct  of  strikes  must  be  accumulated  in  advance  by  the 
painful  exactions  of  "  the  society  "  out  of  scant  weekly 
earnings. 

And  it  w^ill  be  among  the  infelicities  of  such  a  situation, 
that  these  organizations  will  be  dragged  into  strikes 
founded  on  demands  which  can  not  be  maintained,  which 
ignorance  or  passion  on  the  part  of  the  members — it  may  be 
of  a  bare  majority  only — or  meddlesomeness  and  arrogance 


OTHER  OFFICES  OF  TRADES -UNIONS.  399 

on  the  part  of  officers  and  managers,  have  caused  to  be 
put  forward  without  due  consideration  of  the  state  of  the 
market  or  the  equities  of  distribution :  demands  which, 
by  reason  of  their  off  en  si  ven  ess  or  their  extravagance,  mas- 
ters would  not,  without  terrible  punishment,  concede  if  they 
could,  and  perchance  could  not  if  they  would  concede 
without  ultimately  checking  production  and  diminishing 
employment.  Such  demands  workmen  would  be  much  less 
likely  to  make  if  they  had  to  combine  especially  for  the  pur- 
pose. The  reason  of  the  case  would  have  to  be  shown  very 
clearly  to  overcome  the  doubts  of  the  cautious  or  the  more 
experienced.  There  would  be  deliberation,  the  weighing 
of  the  cause,  and  the  counting  of  the  cost.  But  where  a 
discipline  approaching  military  perfection  has  already 
been  established,  where  authority  has  been  erected,  and 
men  have  come,  more  or  less  voluntarily,  but  most  ex- 
plicitly, under  obligation  to  obey  the  decrees  of  that  au- 
thority, action  upon  claims  of  doubtful  legality  or  expedi- 
ency is  likely  to  be  prompt  and  peremptory. 

I  have  thus  far  spoken  of  trades-unions  as  if  they  were 
maintained  only  for  the  purpose  of  initiating  and  conduct- 
ing strikes,  for  increase  of  wages  or  reduction  in  the  hours 
of  labor.  Trades-unions  do,  however,  perform  three  other 
offices :  first,  as  friendly  societies ;  secondly,  as  sequester- 
ing trades  and  limiting  their  membership ;  thirdly,  in 
legislating  upon  the  methods  of  industry. 

Of  trades-unions  as  friendly  societies  insuring  their 
members  against  the  contingencies  of  sickness,  loss  of 
tools,  involuntary  loss  of  employment,  or  providing  the 
rites  of  burial  and  a  pension  to  the  widow  or  to  dependent 
children,1  it  is  not  needful  to  speak  here  at  any  length. 

1  The  objects  of  the  "  Amalgamated  Society  of  Carpenters,"  com- 
prising 190  branches  and  8261  members,  were  thus  stated  by  Mr. 
Applegarth,  the  Secretary,  before  Sir  W.  Erie's  Commission  :  "  To 
raise  funds  for  the  mutual  support  of  its  members  in  case  of  sickness,  ac- 
cident, superannuation  ;  for  the  burial  of  members  and  their  wives  ; 
emigration,  loss  of  tools  by  fire,  waste,  or  theft,  and  for  assistance  to 


400  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

A  controversial  advantage  might  be  taken,  by  one  inimi- 
cally  disposed,  of  the  fact,  brought  so  startlingly  to  light  by 
recent  actuarial  inquiry,  that  nearly  all  the  friendly  soci- 
eties of  Great  Britain  have  been  conducting  their  business 
on  an  unsound  basis,  and  that,  in  consequence,  they  have 
involved  themselves  in  obligations  which  their  realized  and 
anticipated  funds  will  be  inadequate  to  meet;1  but  it 
ought,  in  fairness,  to  be  remembered,  in  extenuation,  that 
the  British  Government  was  in  1819  discovered,  by  Mr. 

members  out  of  work  ;  also,  for  granting  assistance  in  cases  of  extreme 
distress  not  otherwise  provided  for  by  the  rules."  The  proposed  mem- 
ber "  must  be  in  good  health,  have  worked  five  years  at  the  trade,  be 
a  good  workman,  of  steady  habits,  of  good  moral  character,  and  not 
more  than  forty-three  years  of  age."  The  admission-fee  is  2s.  6d.  ;  the 
weekly  payment  Is.  The  several  benefits  are  as  follows:  "Donation 
benefit  for  12  weeks,  10s.  per  week  ;  for  another  12  weeks,  6s.  per 
week  ;  for  leaving  engagement  satisfactory  to  branch  and  executive 
council,  15s.  ;  tool  benefit,  to  any  amount  of  loss  (or  when  a  man  has 
been  a  member  for  only  six  months,  £5) ;  sick  benefit  for  28  weeks, 
12s.  per  week,  and  then  6s.  per  week  so  long  as  his  illness  continues  ; 
funeral  benefit,  £12  (or  £3  10s.  when  a  six-months'  member  dies) ;  acci- 
dent benefit,  £100 ;  superannuation  benefit  for  life  :  if  a  member  25 
years,  8s.  per  week  ;  if  a  member  18  years,  7s.  ;  if  a  member  12  years, 
5s.  The  emigration  benefit  is  £6,  and  there  are  benevolent  grants,  ac- 
cording to  circumstances,  in  cases  of  distress." 

The  following  is  the  exhibit  of  the  liabilities  and  assets  of  the  "  Man- 
chester Unity,"  an  association  numbering  426,663  members,  and  hav. 
ing  3488  places  of  business  : 

LIABILITIES. 

Present  value  of  Sick  Benefits £8,548  592 

"  "    Funeral  Benefits  to  members 1,775  162 

«  to  wives. .  444  086 


£10,767  840 

ASSETS. 

Present  value  of  contributions £6,473  531 

of  additional  resources 392  127 

Capital 2,558  735 

£9,424  393 
Deficiency £1,343  447 


FRIENDLY  SOCIETIES.  401 

Finlaison,  to  have  been  for  twelve  years  doing  quite  as 
foolish  a  thing  in  the  sale  of  its  annuities.1  The  friendly 
societies  have,  so  far  as  appears,  shown  every  disposition 
to  correct  an  error  which  it  has  taken  the  actuaries  of  Eng- 
land some  time  to  discover. 

Of  the  advantages  of  making  the  trade  the  unit  of  life 
and  health  insurance,  much  could  be  said.  Only  two 
points  need  be  mentioned :  first,  it  affords  the  very  per- 
fection of  advertisement  and  agency.  This  is  the  weak 
point  of  life  insurance  as  it  exists  outside  of  natural  associ- 
ations, like  trades  and  professions.  The  report  of  the  In- 
surance Commissioners  of  Massachusetts  for  1870  shows 
that,  of  the  companies  doing  business  in  that  State,  seven- 
teen per  cent  of  the  gross  receipts  went  to  expenses ;  and 
of  this,  ten  and  a  half  per  cent  went  in  commissions  to 
agents.  But  this  is  not  all.  Even  agencies  sustained  at 
such  an  expense  fail  to  give  the  system  of  life  insurance  any 
thing  like  the  extension  which  its  economical  advantages 
deserve,  while  among  the  working  classes  who  especially 
need  insurance,  since  calamities  with  them  cut  so  deep 
into  the  quick  and  work  such  lasting  injury,  the  ordi- 
nary sort  of  life  insurance  performs  scarcely  an  appreciable 
office.  But  a  friendly  society,  confined  to  a  particular 
trade,  having  a  natural  constituency  more  or  less  bound 
together  by  personal  acquaintance  and  common  interests, 
and  actually  managed  by  its  contributors,  furnishes,  as  has 
been  said,  the  very  perfection  of  advertisement  and 
agency.  Secondly,  to  make  the  trade  the  unit  of  life  and 
health  insurance,  affords  the  most  equitable  rule  of  contri- 
bution. Wide  differences  exist  as  to  the  healthf ulness  and 
longevity  of  occupations,  as  has  been  shown  by  some  in- 
stances previously  cited.2  In  the  friendly  society  men 

1  The  loss  to  the  government  was  estimated  by  Mr.  Finlaison  at 
£95,000  a  year. 

8  Pp.  36-38.  Speculators  in  British  annuities  under  the  bill  of  1808 
had  a  pencfiant  for  Scotch  gardeners,  these  appearing  to  constitute  the 
longest-lived  class  recognized  in  the  statistical  tables. 


402  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

who  belong  to  long-lived  and  healthy  trades,  and  whoso 
money  wages  are  perhaps  considerably  reduced  in  conse- 
quence thereof,  are  not  obliged  to  pay  for  the  sickness  and 
the  premature  mortality  of  members  of  other  trades,  who 
are  perhaps  paid  much  higher  rates,  in  compensation  for 
the  dangers  and  hardships  of  their  work. 

But  of  trades-unions  as  friendly  societies  it  is  enough 
here  to  say  that  these  humane  and  useful  provisions  can  be 
better  accomplished  by  associations  which  do  not  assume 
or  attempt  to  legislate  on  the  methods  of  industry,  or  to 
dictate  terms  to  employers,  than  by  societies  which  are  lia- 
able  at  any  time  to  be  dragged  into  protracted  and  ex- 
hausting contests,  and  compelled  to  expend  in  industrial 
warfare  the  funds  long  and  painfully  gathered  against  the 
providential  necessities  of  labor.  The  trade-clubs  of  Den- 
mark and  the  Netherlands  and  the  "  artels"  of  Russia  are 
examples  of  friendly  societies  which  avoid  this  dangerous 
confusion  of  functions.  The  distinction  between  trade-so- 
cieties and  benefit-societies  is  also  very  strongly  marked  in 
Prussia.  In  1860  the  relief-societies  amounted  to  3644, 
with  an  aggregate  membership  of  427,190  and  an  annual 
income  of  nearly  one  million  dollars.1 

In  France  these  societies  are,  under  the  decree  of  1852, 
classified  as  "  approved "  or  "  authorized."  The  total 
number  in  1867  was  5829,  of  which  4127  were  approved 
and  1702  authorized.  Those  which  are  approved  conform 
to  the  requirements  of  the  statutes,  and  enjoy  certain  privi- 
leges in  consequence.  The  funds  of  the  societies  at  the 
close  of  1867  amounted  to  forty-six  millions  of  francs,  the 
annual  receipts  rising  to  fourteen  millions.  Members  had 
received  sick-allowances  during  that  year  to  the  extent  of 
3,998,216  days.  The  total  membership  of  both  classes  of 
societies  reached  750,590,  of  whom  120,387  were  women.9 

In  Denmark,  Mr.  Strachey  reports  not  more  than  one 


1  Ward's  Workmen  and  Wages,  p.  209. 

3  Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes,  1870,  pp.  479-482. 


FRIENDLY  SOCIETIES.  403 

workman  in  fifteen,  or  at  the  outside  one  in  ten,  as  sub- 
scribing to  sick-clubs.1  In  Italy,  Mr.  Herries  reports  about 
600  friendly  societies,  with  a  membership  not  ascertained.* 
In  Russia  the  only  species  of  friendly  societies  existing  is 
the  "  artel,"  a  small  club  rarely  of  more  than  thirty  or 
forty  members,  more  often  of  but  ten  to  twenty.8 

It  is  in  Great  Britain  that  we  find  friendly  societies 
most  widely  spread  and  taking  deepest  root  among  the 
working  classes.  The  Commissioners  in  their  Fourth  He- 
port  (1874)  estimate  that  in  England  and  Wales  there  are 
32,000  such  societies,  with  an  aggregate  of  four  million 
members  and  an  accumulation  of  funds  in  hand  in  excess 
of  fifty-five  millions  of  dollars.  They  add  an  estimate  that 
these  societies  save  to  the  poor-rates  ten  million  dollars  a 
year.4 

But,  secondly,  besides  the  offices  already  indicated, 
trades-unions  effect  the  object,  whether  desirable  or  not, 
of  sequestering5  their  respective  trades,  reducing  the  ac- 
cessions by  apprenticeship  to  the  minimum,  and  practical- 
ly prohibiting  all  accessions  to  their  number,  after  the 
first  general  muster,  except  through  the  door  of  appren- 
ticeship, thereby  strictly  limiting  the  number  of  workmen 
in  each  occupation  and  keeping  the  price  of  their  services 
artificially  high. 

By  what  means  the  constant  warfare  upon  non-society 
men  is  carried  on;  by  what  arguments  and  appliances 
able  wrorkmen  are  convinced  that  it  would  be  for  their 
interest  to  enter  these  close  labor-corporations;  to  what 
shifts  the  excluded  are  put  for  employment  in  the  pres- 
ence of  powerful  societies,  proscribing  them  and  all  who 


1  Report  on  the  Condition  of  the  Industrial  Classes,  1870,  p.  509. 
»  Report  for  1871,  p.  290. 

3  Mr.  Egerton's  Report  of  1873. 

4  Report,  pp.  xvi,  xvii. 

6  This  appears  to  be  the  sole  office  of  the  associations  of  artisans 
("esnaf")  in  European  Turkey.  Mutual  succor  is  an  object  which 
scarcely  appears  in  their  organizations. 


404  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

shall  employ  them,  or  on  what  terms  of  humiliation  they 
are  at  times  tolerated,  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  speak  in  de- 
tail here.  To  the  objection  that,  by  the  organization  of 
such  close  industrial  corporations,  the  great  body  of  labor- 
ers are,  in  a  degree,  shut  out  from  the  benefits  of  employ- 
ment, while  the  enhanced  prices  of  labor,  thus  protected 
f  rom  competition,  are  in  a  great  measure  paid  by  the  un- 
protected wage-laborers,  whose  condition  is  rendered  only 
the  more  miserable,  the  advocates  of  trades-unions  make 
in  substance  these  answers : 

First,  that  without  such  restrictions  the  increase  of  un- 
instructed  and  unprovided  labor  would  cause  every  trade 
to  be  overrun  in  turn,  the  wages  in  each  being  slowly  but 
surely  brought  down,  and  the  whole  body  of  workmen  de- 
graded to  the  lowest  level  of  mere  animal  subsistence ;  that 
nearly  all  the  trades  in  England  were  in  that  condition 
when  the  unions  undertook  the  work  of  restriction  ;  that 
for  those  trades  which  are  now  happily  rescued  from  such 
a  condition  and  lifted  to  a  position  of  industrial  independ- 
ence, to  remove  their  barriers  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
general  mass  of  labor  and  admit  all  freely  into  competi- 
tion, would  afford  but  the  briefest  relief,  inasmuch  as  the 
improvidence  of  the  ignorant,  weak,  and  vicious  would 
soon  fill  the  space  thus  opened  with  just  as  hungry  and 
wretched  a  crowd  as  now  surges  outside  the  barriers,  and 
the  sole  effect  would  thus  be  to  ruin  the  privileged  trades 
without  helping  their  less  fortunate  brethren,  as  a  drown- 
ing man  catches  and  drags  down  one  wrho  might  swim  and 
save  himself. 

Secondly,  that  instead  of  the  associated  trades  throwing 
themselves  thus  away  in  a  delusive  Quixotism,  they  do  in 
effect  accomplish  a  much  better  result  for  the  less  skilled 
laborers  by  maintaining  a  high  standard  of  work  and 
wages,  and  by  acting,  in  their  strong  estate,  as  a  bulwark 
against  the  invasions  of  "  capital,"  affording  example  and 
opportunity  to  all  inferior  bodies  of  labor  to  associate  and 
govern  themselves  by  similar  methods. 


TRADE -UNION  EXCLUSIVE  NESS.  405 

Thirdly  (what  has  been  intimated  above),  that  there  is 
really  no  limit  to  the  principle  of  association  among 
wage-laborers,  and  no  reason,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
why  every  branch  of  industry,  even  to  the  day-laboring 
class,  should  not  be  protected  by  similar  organizations  and 
regulations.  The  recent  extension  of  agricultural  unions 
among  the  scattered  farm-laborers  of  England  is  pointed 
to  with  not  a  little  force  as  proving  the  adaptation  of 
the  system  of  industrial  federation  to  conditions  the  least 
favorable.  When,  then,  it  is  said  all  industries  are  thus 
organized  and  established,  none  will  be  at  advantage  or 
disadvantage  relatively  to  another,  but  all  will  be  at  an 
advantage  with  respect  to  the  employing  class.  Mean- 
while the  result  of  universal  federation  would  not  be 
hastened  but  retarded  by  our  relaxing  our  restrictions 
and  abandoning  the  good  principle.  It  is  wholesome 
rigor  which  we  exercise ;  our  measures  seem  seliish,  and 
indeed  they  are  taken  with  consideration  only  of  our  own 
interests,  but  the  results  are  sure  to  favor  the  whole 
cause  of  labor. 

In  each  and  all  these  claims  there  is  enough  of  truth 
to  entitle  them  to  somewhat  more  respectful  treatment 
than  has  been  accorded  them.  The  student  of  history 
recognizes  that  the  ancient  guilds  of  which  the  trades- 
unions  are  the  indirect  successors  performed  a  high  office 
in  their  time.1  Selfish  as  were  the  aims  arid  prescriptive 
as  were  the  methods  of  the  guild,  it  had  yet  its  part  to 
play  in  the  strife  of  the  people  against  king  and  priest 
and  noble ;  and  it  played  that  part,  on  the  whole,  well. 
Selfish  and  proscriptive  as  the  modern  trade-union  has 

1  "  Although  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  in  a  normal  condition  of 
society  the  system  of  protection  and  monopoly,  of  which  the  corpora- 
tions were  the  very  ideal,  is  extremely  unfavorable  to  production,  in 
the  anarchy  of  the  Middle  Ages  it  was  of  very  grea-  use  in  giving  the 
trading  classes  a  union  which  protected  them  from  plunder  and  en- 
abled them  to  incline  legislation  in  their  favor." — Lecky's  History  of 
Rationalism,  ii.  240. 


406  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

been,  it  has  curbed  the  authority  of  the  employing  class 
which  sought  to  domineer  not  in  their  own  proper 
strength,  but  through  a  cruel  advantage  given  them  by 
class  legislation,  by  sanitary  maladministration,  and  by 
laws  debarring  the  people  in  effect  from  access  to  the 
soil.  My  difference  with  such  defenders  of  trades-unions 
as  Mr.  Thornton  is  merely  as  to  the  time  when  these 
should  be  put  away  as  an  outgrown  thing.  I  find  no 
ground  for  expecting  any  benefit  to  the  wages  class  as  a 
whole,  from  restricting  the  access  to  professions  and  trades 
in  any  country  where  education  is  general,  where  trade  is 
free,  where  there  is  a  popular  tenure  of  the  soil,  and 
where  full  civil  rights,  with  some  measure  of  political 
franchises,  are  accorded  to  workingmen. 


But  it  is  as  associations  for  legislating  respecting  the 
methods  and  courses  of  industry,  that  trades-unions  acquire 
their  highest  importance. 

Strong  as  the  passion  of  meddling  is  in  all  political 
communities,  it  appears  nowhere  so  strong  as  in  organiza- 
tions of  workingmen ;  mischievous  as  have  been  the  re- 
strictions upon  trade  and  industry,  imposed  in  the  past 
by  governments,  it  would  be  difficult  to  match  some  of  the 
latest  trades-union  edicts  out  of  the  statutes  of  Edward  III. 
and  Richard  II. 

The  Reports  of  the  British  Commissioners  (Sir  William 
Erie,  chairman)  of  1867  show  that  there  were  in  force 
among  trades-unions  rules  like  the  following,  to  be  enforced, 
wherever  the  unions  should  find  themselves  strong 
enough,  by  fines  levied  on  the  masters,  or  by  strikes  : 

Prohibiting  a  man  from  employing  his  own  brother  or 
son,  or  even  from  laboring  with  his  own  hands  at  his  own 
work,  unless  duly  admitted  to  membership  of  the  proper 
trade  society. 

Prohibiting  a  workman  to  work  out  of  his  trade,  so  that 
a  mason  may  not,  for  the  shortest  time,  do  the  least  part  of 


TRADE.  UNION  R  ULES.  407 

the  work  of  a  bricklayer,  or  a  bricklayer  undertake  the 
smallest  casual  patch  of  plastering  or  of  stone -lay  ing,  or 
a  carpenter  finish  a  remnant  of  bricklayer's  or  mason's 
work,  and  if  called  in  to  fit  a  door  or  set  a  post,  he  may 
not,  if  he  find  the  space  accidentally  left  too  small,  remove 
so  much  as  one  loose  brick,  but  must  wait  for  the  appro- 
priate artisan  to  be  summoned. 

Prohibiting  a  workman,  where  an  assistant  is  usually  re- 
quired, to  be  his  own  assistant,  for  never  so  small  a  job  or 
short  a  time,  so  that  a  plasterer,  called  to  a  piece  of  work 
where  an  assistant  would  not  be  actively  employed  for  one 
eighth  of  the  time,  must  still  come  attended  by  his  "  homo," 
who,  if  he  can  not  be  kept  usefully  busy,  will,  for  the 
good  of  the  craft,  remain  dignifiedly  lazy  during  the 
whole  operation. 

Prohibiting  any  one  to  be  known  as  an  exceptionally 
good  workman  in  his  trade  ;  against  walking  fast  to  the 
place  of  work  when  in  the  employer's  time ;  against  carry- 
ing more  than  a  certain  load,  as  eight  brick  at  a  time  in 
Leeds,  ten  brick  in  London,  or  twelve  brick  in  Liverpool. 

Prohibiting  use  to  be  made  or  advantage  taken  of  na- 
tural agents,  of  improved  machinery,  or  of  special  local 
facilities.  Thus  we  have  regulations  against  brick  being 
wheeled  in  a  barrow  instead  of  being  carried  in  a  hod,  for 
no  other  reason  alleged  than  that  brick  can  be  wheeled 
more  easily  than  carried ;  against  brick  being  made  by  ma- 
chinery or  stone  dressed  by  machinery,  so  that  inventions 
of  vast  capability  remain  almost  unused  in  England ; 
against  stone  being  dressed,  even  by  hand,  at  the  quarry 
where  it  is  soft  and  can  be  easily  worked. 

Prohibiting  with  more  than  Chinese  intolerance  the 
use  within  small  districts,  arbitrarily  circumscribed,  of 
material  produced  outside,  so  that  brick  can  not  be  carried 
into  Manchester  from  brickyards  distant  only  four  miles 
without  the  certainty  of  a  strike  ;  prohibiting  an  employer 
from  taking  a  job  outside  the  place  of  his  own  residence,  un- 
less he  shall  take  with  him  at  least  one  half  the  workmen  to 


408  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

be  employed ;  prohibiting  members  to  u  work  for  any  gen- 
tleman, at  any  job  whatever,  who  finds  his  own  materials 
or  does  not  employ  a  regular  master  in  the  trade  to  find 
the  same ;"  and,  finally,  making  war  at  every  stage  upon 
"  piece-work." 

It  is  not  to  be  understood  that  any  one  society  has 
adopted  all  these  rules,  or  that  all  societies  have  adopted 
any  one  of  them ;  but,  to  a  very  great  extent,  rules  like 
those  recited,  and  many  others  quite  as  minutely  restric- 
tive, are  enforced  by  the  whole  striking-power  of  the  trade. 

All  such  regulations  and  restrictions  must  clearly  be 
judged  by  the  principle  which  has  been  applied  to  State 
legislation  on  similar  subjects.  If  they  can  be  shown,  be- 
yond any  reasonable  doubt,  to  be  correspondent  to  human 
infirmities  in  such  a  way  that  labor,  on  the  whole  and  in 
the  long  run,  has  actually  a  freer  resort  to  its  best  market 
by  reason  of  them,  then  they  stand  justified  on  economical 
grounds.  But  if  they  are  not  thus  required  to  correct  lia- 
bilities which  threaten  the  mobility  of  labor,  they  must  be 
pronounced  as  mischievous  as  they  are  irritating  and  insult- 
ing. And  this  liability  and  strong  proclivity  of  associa- 
tions of  workingmen  to  intermeddle  and  dictate  concern- 
ing the  methods  and  courses  of  industry  must  be  accepted 
as  a  valid,  practical  argument  from  human  nature  against 
trades-unions. 


CONCLUDING  EEMAEKS. 

THROUGHOUT  the  foregoing  discussions  I  have  written  un- 
der a  constant  sense  of  my  accountability  as  a  teacher  of 
political  economy.  I  have  adduced  no  causes,  recognized 
no  objects,  but  such  as  1  deemed  to  be  strictly  economical. 
ISTo  ethical  or  social  considerations  have  moved  me  con- 
sciously in  the  composition  of  this  work.  Causes  have,  it 
is  true,  been  here  adduced  which  are  not  commonly  recog- 
nized as  economical,  but  it  has  only  been  where  reasons 
could  be  shown  sufficient,  in  my  judgment,  for  attributing 
to  these  causes,  which  are  perhaps  primarily  ethical  or  so- 
cial, a  clear  potency  within  the  field  of  industry,  affecting 
either  the  production  or  the  distribution  of  wealth  ;  for  I 
hold  that  it  can  not  be  questioned  that  whatever  affects 
either  of  these  is,  in  just  so  far,  an  economical  cause. 
Thus,  sympathy  for  labor  (pp.  362-372),  if  it  serves  in  any 
degree  to  make  competition  on  the  side  of  the  laboring 
class  more  active  and  persistent ;  if  it  takes  any  thing  from 
the  activity  and  persistency  with  which  the  employing 
class  use  the  means  in  their  power  to  beat  down  wages,  or 
lengthen  the  hours  of  work,  or  introduce  young  children 
into  painful  and  protracted  labor,  becomes,  in  just  so  far 
as  it  has  such  an  effect,  a  strictly  economical  cause,  to  be 
recognized,  and,  so  far  as  may  be,  its  force  measured,  by 
the  writer  on  the  distribution  of  wealth.  The  economist 
recognizes  indolence  (pp.  174,  175),  the  indisposition  to 
labor,  as  an  economical  cause,  holding  men  back  from  the 
acquisition  of  wealth  which  they  might  obtain  but  for  the 
force  of  this  principle.  Why  is  not  public  opinion,  re- 
straining men,  as  it  so  largely  does,  from  the  acquisition 
of  wealth  by  means  held  to  be  dishonorable  or  oppressive 
to  the  weaker  classes  of  the  community,  also  and  equally 
to  be  recognized  as  an  economical  cause  ? 


410  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

I  regret  that  this  treatise  should  be  so  strongly  contro- 
versial in  form ;  but  the  fact  is,  certain  doctrines  which  I 
deem  to  be  wholly  unfounded  have  become  so  widely 
spread  that  one  can  make  no  progress,  by  so  much  as  a 
step,  towards  a  philosophy  of  wages  without  encounter- 
ing them.  These  doctrines  are  : 

1st  (pp.  136-140).  That  there  is  a  wage-fund  irrespec- 
tive of  the  numbers  and  industrial  quality  of  the  laboring 
population,  constituting  the  sole  source  from,  which  wages 
can  at  any  time  be  drawn. 

2d  (pp.  161-165).  That  competition  is  so  far  perfect  that 
the  laborer,  as  producer,  always  realizes  the  highest  wages 
which  the  employer  can  afford  to  pay,  or  else,  as  consum- 
er, is  recompensed  in  the  lower  price  of  commodities  for 
any  injury  he  may  chance  to  staffer  as  producer. 

3d  (pp.  243-246).  That,  in  the  organization  of  modern 
industrial  society,  the  laborer  and  the  capitalist  are  toge- 
ther sufficient  unto  production,  the  actual  employer  of 
labor  being  regarded  as  the  capitalist,  or  else  as  the  mere 
stipendiary  agent  and  creature  of  the  capitalist,  receiving 
a  remuneration  which  can  properly  be  treated  like  the 
wages  of  ordinary  labor. 

These  doctrines  I  have  found  it  necessary  to  contro- 
vert ;  and  in  so  doing  have  not  cared  to  mince  matters  or 
pick  phrases.  For  any  excess  of  controversial  zeal  I  shall 
easily  be  justified,  if  I  have  substantiated  the  positions  I 
have  taken ;  on  the  other  hand,  if  I  have  been  unduly 
presumptuous  in  assailing  doctrines  sanctioned  by  such 
high  authority,  a  little  too  much  harshness  in  argument 
will  not  add  appreciably  to  my  offence. 

It  may,  perhaps,  be  well  to  guard  against  misconstruc- 
tion on  a  single  point.  In  getting  rid  of  the  wage-fund, 
we  have  not  reached  the  result  that  wages  can  be  in- 
creased at  any  time  or  to  any  amount  whatever.  We 
have  merely  cast  aside  a  false  measure  of  wages.  Wages 
still  have  their  measure  and  their  limits,  and  no  increase 
can  take  place  without  a  strictly  economical  cause. 


CONCLUDING  KEMAEK8.  4U 

Wages  can  not  be  larger  than  the  product  except  by  force 
of  pre-existing  contract.  Wages  must,  in  the  long  run, 
be  less  than  the  product  by  enough  to  give  the  capitalist 
his  due  returns,  and  the  employer  his  living-profits. 

What  then  has  been  effected  by  doing  away  with  the 
wage-fund?  We  have  shown  (Chapter  YIII.)  that  the 
remuneration  of  hired  labor  finds  its  measure  not  in  a 
past  whose  accumulations  have  been  plundered  by  class 
legislation  and  wasted  by  dynastic  wars,  but  in  the  pre- 
sent and  the  future,  always  larger,  freer,  and  more  fortu- 
nate. If  capital  furnishes  the  measure  of  wages,  then 
that  measure  is  derived  from  the  past,  such  as  it  has  been, 
and  no  increase  of  energy,  intelligence,  and  enterprise 
on  the  part  of  the  laboring  class  can  add  to,  as  no  failure 
on  their  part  can  take  from,  their  present  remuneration, 
which  is  determined  wholly  by  the  ratio  existing  between 
capital  and  population.  If  production  furnishes  the 
measure  of  wages,  as  is  here  maintained,  then  the  wages 
class  are  entitled  to  the  immediate  benefit  of  every  im- 
provement in  science  and  art,  every  discovery  of  re- 
sources in  nature,  every  advance  in  their  own  industrial 
character  (Chapter  IX.).  Surely  it  is  not  a  small  matter 
that  the  laborer  should  find  the  measure  of  his  wages  in 
the  present  and  the  future,  rather  than  in  the  past ! 


But  that  portion  of  this  treatise  on  which  I  should  be 
disposed  most  strongly  to  insist,  as  of  extended  conse- 
quence in  the  philosophy  of  wages,  is  the  doctrine  that 
if  the  wage  laborer  does  not  pursue  his  interest,  he  loses 
his  interest  (Chapter  X.)  in  opposition  to  the  view  so 
generally  maintained  by  economists,  that  if  the  wage 
laborer  does  not  seek  his  interest,  his  interest  will  seek 
him ;  that  economical  forces  are  continually  operating  to 
relieve  and  repair  the  injuries  of  labor ;  and,  specifically, 
that  all  sums  taken  in  excessive  profits,  or  for  the  exces- 
sive remuneration  of  capital,  whether  through  combina- 


412  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

tions  of  employers  or  capitalists  or  through  the  disabili- 
ties of  the  working  class,  are  sure  to  be  restored  to  wages. 
To  the  contrary,  I  have  sought  to  show  that,  in  a  state 
of  imperfect  competition : 

First,  wages  may  be  reduced  without  any  enhancement 
of  profits,  the  difference  being,  not  gain  to  the  employer, 
but  loss  to  mankind  through  the  industrial  degradation  of 
the  laborer  (Chapter  IV.)  Secondly,  for  so  much  of  the 
sums  taken  from  the  laboring  class  by  reduction  of  wages 
as  the  employers  or  capitalists  may  at  the  time  secure  in 
excessive  profits  or  excessive  interest,  there  exists  no 
adequate  security,  under  the  operation  of  strictly  economi- 
cal forces,  that  it  will  be  fully  returned  to  the  wages 
class  in  a  quickened  demand  for  their  labor,  inasmuch  as 
luxuriousness  and  indolence  (pp.  237-40,  251)  will  in- 
evitably enter,  among  the  majority  of  employers,  to  waste 
in  self-indulgence  a  portion  of  the  profits  so  acquired,  or 
to  take  something  from  the  activity  and  the  carefulness 
with  which  future  production  will  be  pursued.  Thirdly, 
in  respect  to  such  industrial  injuries  as  have  just  been  de- 
scribed, economical  forces  by  themselves  tend  (pp.  165, 166) 
to  perpetuate  and  continually  to  deepen  the  injury,  put- 
ting the  laborer  at  a  constantly  increasing  disadvantage 
in  the  exchange  of  his  services. 

If  these  three  propositions  have  been  substantiated,  it 
follows  with  absolute  certainty  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
schools,  that  in  a  state  of  imperfect  competition  the  em- 
ployer and  the  capitalist  are  the  guardians  of  the  laborer's 
interests  and  the  trustees  of  his  wages,  is  most  fallacious, 
those  interests  being,  in  truth,  only  secured  when  placed  in 
his  own  keeping  (pp.  241,  242),  those  wages  being  only  his 
own  when  paid  into  his  hands,  and  that,  to  enable  him  thus 
to  maintain  his  rights  in  the  distribution  of  the  product  of 
industry,  he  must  be  qualified  by  an  education  which  is 
wholly  extra-economical,  for  which  the  community, 
through  either  its  social  or  its  political  agencies,  must 
make  provision. 


CONCLUDING  EEMARKS.  413 

This  brings  us  face  to  face  with  the  doctrine  of  Laissez 
faire,  which  teaches  that  the  spontaneous  action  of  in- 
dividuals, each  seeking  his  own  interest  on  his  own  in- 
stance, guided  and  helped  at  most  by  the  purely  social 
forces  of  the  community,  will  achieve  the  best  possible 
industrial  results;  and  that  the  interference  of  govern- 
ment, operating  by  constraint  and  compulsion,  under  the 
sanction  of  law,  can  only  be  mischievous.  Reasons  have 
been  shown  for  believing  that  Laissez  faire,  so  long  and 
loudly  proclaimed  a  principle  of  universal  application, 
is  nothing  but  a  rule  of  conduct  (pp.  162-4)  applicable  in 
certain  conditions  ;  a  rule  very  useful,  indeed,  when  duly 
subordinated  to  higher  considerations,  but  mischievous 
when  allowed  to  bar  the  way  to  clear,  practical  oppor- 
tunities for  advancing  the  industrial  condition  of  man- 
kind ;  a  rule,  in  short,  which,  like  fire  or  water,  is  a  good 
servant  but  a  bad  master. 

Yet,  in  reducing  Laissez  faire  from  the  rank  assigned 
it  in  most  economical  treatises,  to  its  true  grade  of  a  prac- 
tical rule,  good  in  certain  conditions  only,  we  have  not 
reached  the  result  that  State  interference  is  therefore  desi- 
rable at  any  and  every  point  where  the  spontaneous  action 
of  individuals  shall  be  seen  to  be  inadequate  to  achieve 
the  highest  good  of  all  classes.  We  have  merely  put  the 
objection  to  paternal  government  on  grounds  which  will 
bear  examination.  State  interference,  however  well  in- 
tended, however  clear  the  occasion,  is  certain  in  some 
degree  to  miss  its  mark,  and  to  work  more  or  less  of  posi- 
tive mischief  in  any  attempt  to  remove  the  evils  incident  to 
individual  action.  Legislation  is  always  more  or  less  un- 
wise ;  administration  always  falls  in  some  degree  short  of 
its  intent  (pp.  172,  173).  Certainly  no  one  can  entertain  a 
stronger  sense  of  the  evils  of  the  regulation  by  law  of  the 
industrial  concerns  of  the  people  than  the  writer  of  this 
treatise.  State  interference  with  industry  is  only  justi- 
fied where  the  admitted  mischiefs  of  restriction  are  heavily 
overborne  by  an  urgent  occasion  for  preventing  the  per- 


414  THE  WAGES  QUESTION. 

manent  degradation  of  the  laboring  classes  through  the 
operation  of  economical  forces  which  the  individual  is 
powerless  to  resist. 

Admitting,  then,  that  it  is  eminently  desirable  to  reduce 
the  action  of  the  organized  public  force  to  the  minimum 
consistent  with  the  above  object,  shall  we  not  say  that 
government  can  not  relieve  itself  from  the  necessity  of 
frequent  and  minute  interferences  with  industry  in  any 
other  way  to  so  great  an  extent  as  by,  1st,  insisting  on  the 
thorough  primary  education  of  the  wrhole  population ;  2d, 
providing  a  strict  system  of  sanitary  administration ;  3d, 
securing  by  special  precautions  the  integrity  of  banks  of 
savings  for  the  encouragement  of  the  instincts  of  frugality, 
sobriety,  and  industry  ? 

Each  of  these  things  is  contrary  to  the  doctrine  of  Laissez 
faire ;  yet  I,  for  one,  can  not  find  room  to  doubt  that,  on 
purely  economical  grounds,  the  action  of  the  State  herein 
is  not  only  justifiable  but  a  matter  of  elementary  duty. 
A  little  interference  with  the  freedom  of  individual  action 
here  will  save  the  necessity  of  a  great  deal  of  interference 
elsewhere.  If  the  State  will  see  to  it  that  the  whole  body 
of  the  people  can  read  and  write  and  cipher ;  that  the 
common  air  and  common  water,  which  no  individual  vigi- 
lance can  protect,  yet  on  which  depends,  in  a  degree  which 
few  even  of  intelligent  persons  comprehend,  the  public 
health  and  the  laboring-power  of  a  population,  are  kept 
pure ;  and  that  the  first  feeble  efforts  of  the  poor  at  better- 
ing their  condition  and  saving  "for  a  rainy  day"  are 
guarded  against  official  frauds  and  speculative  risks,  it 
may  take  its  hands  off  at  a  hundred  other  points,  and 
trust  its  citizens,  in  the  main,  to  do  and  care  for  them- 
selves. These  things  therefore  are  demanded  by  the  true 
economy  of  State  action. 

But,  even  so,  I  find  to  my  own  satisfaction  at  least  a 
present  necessity  for  legislation  and  administration  in  the 
interest  of  health,  in  the  case  of  all  industries  where  large 
numbers  of  laborers  of  differing  sexes,  ages,  and  degrees 


CONCLUDING  REMARKS.  415 

are  aggregated,  especially  where  other  than  manual  power 
is  employed.  Factory  acts  prohibiting  labor  for  all 
classes  beyond  the  term  which  physiological  science  ac- 
cepts as  consistent  with  soundness  and  vigor ;  restricting 
within  limits  carefully  adapted  to  the  average  capability  of 
effort  and  endurance  the  employment  of  children  and  of 
women  also,  so  long  at  least  as  women  are  denied  suffrage 
on  the  ground  either  of  mental  inferiority  or  sexual  un- 
iitness  for  contact  with  what  is  rough  and  vile ;  and  pro- 
viding a  full  and  frequent  sanitary  inspection  of  air  and 
water,  from  garret  to  cellar,  in  all  buildings  thus  occupied: 
acts  like  these  seem,  at  least  in  the  present,  to  be  justified 
and  demanded,  not  more  by  social  and  moral  than  by 
economical  considerations  (pp.  357-9).  For  it  must  ever 
be  borne  in  mind,  in  such  discussions,  that  those  things  are 
economically  justified  which  can  reasonably  be  shown  to 
contribute,  on  the  whole  and  in  the  long  run,  to  a  larger 
production,  or,  production  remaining  the  same,  to  a  more 
equable  distribution  of  wealth. 


INDEX. 


Adams,  John,  the  paper  money  of  the 
American  Revolution,  16. 

Agricultural  wages  paid  largely  in 
kind,  20-4;  agricultural  laborers  in 
England  crippled  early  by  rheuma- 
tism, 38 ;  agricultural  truck  not  for- 
bidden in  England,  327. 

Agriculture,  great  irregularity  of  em- 
ployment in,  27,  28,  32,  33 ;  law  of 
"Diminishing  Returns"  in,  chap.  v. ; 
difficulty  of  applying  co-operation  to, 
280,  281. 

Air,  purity  of  the,  affecting  the  effi- 
ciency of  labor,  60-4. 

Alison,  Sir  Archibald,  History  of 
Europe.  54,  75rc.,  118n.,  1337*., 
180w.,  2687*.,  317,  318,  355,  397ra. ; 
(Report  on  the  Payment  of  Wages 
Bill,  1854),  testimony  respecting 
truck,  331-333. 

Allotment  system,  the,  25. 

Ames,  Dr.,  Sex  in  Industry,  373. 

Annuities,  mistake  of  the  British 
Government  respecting  sale  of,  400, 
401. 

Applegarth,  William,  objects  and 
methods  of  the  Amalgamated  Soci- 
ety of  Carpenters,  399. 

Apprentices,  statute  of  (England), 
306,307. 

Apprenticeship  made  the  condition  of 
entrance  to  many  trades  by  union 
regulations,  403-5. 

Arbitration,  394. 

Argyle,  Duke  of,  famine  in  India, 
118rc.:  necessity  for  restrictions 
upon  labor,  357. 

Arithmetical  increase  of  subsistence, 
102. 

Ashworth,  Mr.,  comparative  cost  of 
clothing  from  cotton,  wool,  and  flax, 
12271. 

Austria,  co-operation  in,  288;  restric- 
tions upon  industry,  309,  810; 
marriage  statistics,  356;  factory 
legislation,  360 ;  strikes,  395. 


Avarice,  in  masters  and  employers, 
opposes  true  self-interest,  59. 
164. 

Babbage,  Charles,  Economy  of  Man- 

"  ufactures,  98,  257,  279».,  28071., 
2S2n. 

Bagehot,  Walter,  varying  efficiency  of 
labor,  47  •  Lombard  Street,  230. 

Baines,  Mr.,  improvidence  of  the 
cottage  population  of  Leeds, 
350ra. 

Baker,  R.  Smith,  false  economy  of 
the  labor  of  married  women  in  fac- 
tories, 383/>. 

Bastiat,  Fred'k.,  Harmonies  ofPolit- 
cal  Economy,  159w. 

Batbie,  M.,  Nouvcau  CoursdeVEcon- 
omie,  447i.,  49?i.,  54,  65. 

Baxter,  R.  Dudley,  National  Income. 
307i.,  31,  32,  38,  37571. ;  Local  Taxa- 
tion, 323. 

Bazley,  Sir  Thomas,  accidents  in 
mining  in  England,  36/i. 

Beaulieu,  M.,  Les  Populations  Ouv- 
rieres,  78. 

Belgium,  statistics  of  height  and 
weight,  50,  51 ;  intemperance  in, 
78/i.;  ratio  of  bread-winners  to  de- 
pendents, 12671.  ;  proportion  of  for- 
eigners in  the  population,  184 ;  co-op- 
eration in,  287 ;  marriage  statistics 
of,  356;  no  factory  legislation  in, 
361 ;  laws  against  strikes  and  com- 
binations in,  395. 

Beverley,Mr. ,  marriages  early  in  India, 
35671. 

Biggs,  Wm.,  testimony  respecting 
frame  rents,  334. 

Birth-rate,  within  different  occupa- 
tions, 191 ;  effect  of  injudicious  poor 
laws  upon,  322,  323. 

"Black  Death,"  the,  industrial  conse- 
quences of,  304.  , 

Blanqui,  M.,  Cours  ef  Economic  7i*. 
dustrielle,  59n.  27471. 


118 


INDEX. 


Board,  to  agricultural  labours,  20,  21. 

Bodio,  1iouis,Cassedifiisparmio,  350. 

Bonar,  Mr.,  relation  of  employers  and 
laborers  in  Switzerland,  260n. 

Boot  and  shoe  manufacture,  irregu- 
larity of  employment  in,  30 ;  intro- 
duction of  machinery  into,  189. 

Brabazon,  Lord,  payment  of  agricul- 
tural wages  in  Prance,  2Qn. ;  food 
of  the  laboring  population,  56«.,  78; 
town  and  country  rents,  118w. ; 
wages  of  women  and  men  in  agricul- 
ture, 37o»i.,  380w. 

Brassey,  Thomas,  Work  and  Wages, 
efficiency  of  labor  among  various 
nationalities,  45,  46,  73;  diet  of 
East  Indians,  llSn. ;  payment  of 
wages  to  French  laborers,  350w.  ; 
women  in  railway  construction, 
374ra.;  Address  at  Halifax,  277-278. 

Bread  winners,  ratio  to  dependents, 
I26n.,  191. 

Brewster,  Messrs. ,  co-operative  enter- 
prise, 283w. 

Briggs,  Messrs.,  co-operative  enter- 
prise, 282. 

Brickmaldng,  irregularity  of  employ- 
ment in,  28  ;  employment  of  women 
and  children  in,  52,  202. 

Brittany,  low  stature  of  peasantry  of, 
50  ;  language  of,  175?z. 

Britton,  J.  W., co-operative  enterprise, 
283  n, 

Cairnes,  J.  E.,  Essays  in  Political 
Economy,  effects  of  the  gold  dis- 
coveries on  prices,  ~L4n.  ;  the  doc- 
trine of  laistez  faire,  162n,  168, 173 ; 
insufficiency  of  the  employers'  sense 
"  of  self-interest,  164  ;  The  Slave  Pow- 
er, inefficiency  of  slave  labor,  72 ; 
The  logical  Method  of  Political 
Economy,  (Ed.  1875)  the  law  of  dim- 
inishing returns  in  agriculture,  94«. 
lOOn  ;  ratio  between  population  and 
subsistence,  119 ;  the  office  of  econo- 
mic definition,  218  ;  Some  Leading 
Principles  of  Political  Economy, 
etc.,  137?i.,  184;  theory  of  "non- 
competing  groups,"  195-7;  profits 
the  reward  of  abstinence,  231 ; 
profits  at  or  near  the  minimum, 
233 ;  excessive  profits  restored  to 
wages,  237,  238,  253 ;  co-operation, 
264-265;  are  strikes  &uccessful? 
298ra.;  excessive  friction  of  retail 
trade,  314,  315. 

Caird,  James,  dwellings  in  Scotland, 
61 ;  Prairie  Farming,  91n.; 

Canada,  efficiency  of  labor  in,  45. 

CantiUon,  M.,  ratio  of  breadwinners 
to  dependents,  126w. 

Capital,  often  supplied  by  the  persons 
who  perform  labor  in  production, 
8 ;  does  not  f  urnish  the  measure  of 

18* 


wages,  ;  130,  181  ;  yet  wages  are 
largely  advanced  out  of  capital  ; 
does  capital  include  land  ?  224-5  ; 
are  the  returns  of  capital  at  the 
minimum  or  not  ?  233,  237  ;  does  it 
make  any  difference  to  the  wages 
class  whether  the  returns  of  capital 
are  at  the  minimum  or  not  ?  237-41. 

Capitalist  class,  the,  chap.  xiii.  ;  not 
coincident  with  employing  class, 
229,  244,  245;  dependent  equally 
with  the  laboring  class,  on  the  em- 
ploying class,  290,  291. 

Carey,    H.  C.,  Essay  on    Wages,  141, 


Carpentering   trade,    irregularity    of 

employment  in,  28,  32. 
Carpenters,  the  Amalgamated  Socie- 

ty of,  399. 
Catholic   countries,   holidays  in,  29; 

priesthood,    influence    in  favor  of 

early  marriages,  358ra. 
Census,  United  States,  1870,  66,  180, 

375  ;   Ireland,  1851,  111  ;    Scotland. 

1871,  175w.,  191,  377. 
Chadwick,   Edwin,  cost  of  rearing  a 

child,  33ra.;  employers  prefer  high- 

priced  labor,  41  n.;    effects  of  drill 

upon  laborers  ;  72  ;  difficulty  of  re- 

moving laborers,  185,  257  ;    effects 

of  education  upon  the  condition  of 

the  laboring  class,  353. 
Chalmers,    Thomas,  Political  Econo- 

my, 322//. 
Chamberlain,  E.  M.,  Sovereigns  of  In- 

dustry, 288^. 
"Channel  Islands,"   the,    tenure   of 

land  in,  208. 
Charles  II.  (England),  industrial  legis- 

lation of  his  reign,  308. 
Chateaubriand,  M.  ,  wages  a  later  form 

of  slavery,  295. 
Cherbuliez,  A.  E.,  Precis  de  la  Science 

Economique,  131. 
Cheerfulness  in  labor,  72-77. 
Chevalier,  M.,  Lectures,  99,  105n.  156, 

170  ;  Travels  in  the   United  States. 

180*. 
Children,  irregularity  of  their  employ- 

ment in  agriculture,  33  ;    employed 

on  work  unsuited  to  their  strength, 

52,  53,  167,  168,  201-3  ;    legislation 

respecting  the  employment  of,  356- 

62. 
China,  food  habits  of  the  people,  118  $ 

immobility  of  the  population,  176. 
China    scourers,   excessive    mortality 

among,  37. 
Cider  truck,  23,  327. 
^Cleanliness  of  person,  affecting  efficien- 

cy of  labor,  60,  61. 
Clerical  profession,  duration  of  life  in, 

37. 
Clifford,  Frederick,  The  Agricultural 

Lock-out  c/1874,  47rcM  117,  118n. 


INDEX. 


419 


Clipperton,  Consul,  speech  differences 
among  population  of  France,  175/i. 

jClothing,  its  importance  to  the  effi- 
ciency of  the  laborer,  58 ;  relative 
expenditure  of  different  classes  for, 
117n. ;  is  cheap  clothing  desirable  ? 
1253 ;  comparative  cost  of  clothing 
from  cotton,  wool,  and  flax,  122/3. 

Coinage,  changes  in,  affecting  nominal 
wages,  13 

Cobden,  R.,  English  peasantry  di- 
vorced from  the  soil,  20Sn. 

Colwell,  Stephen,  Ways  and  Means  of 
Payment :,  13n. 

Competition,  when  perfect,  secures  an 
absolutely  right  distribution  of 
wealth,  157 ;  imperfect  or  unequal 
competition  may  depress  and  de- 
grade the  laboring  class,  165,  166, 
220,  221,239-41,  8G8w,  385,  386  ;  Prof. 
Cairnes'  theory  of  "Non-competing 
Groups,"  195,  202,  221,  222;  compe- 
tition opposed  by  the  force  of  cus- 
tom, 311. 

Communal  property  in  Switzerland, 
351. 

Consumption  of  wealth  defined,  4. 

Consumptive  co-operation,  283-8. 

Co-operation,  defined,  247;  erroneous 
characterization  of  ,by  Prof.  Cairnes, 
262-5 ;  its  real  object  is  to  get  rid  of 
the  employing  class,  265-8  ;  antici- 
pated advantages  of,  268-72 ;  its  lim- 
ited success,  272-75  ;  its  difficulties, 
275-80;  applied  to  agriculture,  281; 
partial  co-operation,  282-3;  consump- 
tive co-operation  subject  to  fewer 
difficulties,  283-4;  anticipated  ad- 
vantages of,  2S4-6;  statistics  of, 
287-8. 

Continuity  of  employment,  the  em- 
ployer's interest  in,  300-2 

Continuity  of  production,  the  employ- 
er's interest  in,  298-9. 

Corn  Laws,  repeal  of,  effect  on  English 
agriculture,  258. 

Corsica,  annual  migration  into,  from 
France,  I87n. 

Cotter  tenancy,  9,  212. 

Cotton  manufacture,  irregularity  of 
employment  in,  30. 

Cotton  goods,  cost  of,  compared  with 
woollens,  122n. 

Courcelle-Seneuil,  M.,  Operations  de 
Banque,  252. 

Cowell,  Mr.,  effect  of  English  poor  laws 
on  female  chastity,  322. 

Cow-land,  concession  of,  23 ;  profits 
estimated,  24. 

Coxe,  Wm. ,  Travels,  the  bearing  of  the 
Swiss  peasantry,  260. 

Cranworth,  Lord,  strikes  always  futile,  ! 
388. 

Crowe,  H.  B.  M.  Consul  -  General, 
strikes  in  Norway,  396.  i 


Currency,  fictitious,  effects  npon  wage 

labor,  310-3. 
Custom,  its  office  in  protecting  the 

weaker  classes  against  unequal  com- 

petition, 311. 

Darwin,  Charles,  The  Origin  of  Spe- 
cies, 104. 

Debts,  small:  shall  they  be  protect- 
ed by  law  ?  350rc. 

Definitions  in  political  economy,  218. 

Degradation  of  labor,  the,  chap.  iv. 

Denmark,  proportion  of  foreigners  in 
the  population,  184  ;  co-operation  in, 
287,  288  ;  restrictions  upon  industry 
removed,  309;  savings-banks  sta- 
tistics, 350/1.  ;  strikes,  396  ;  trade 
clubs,  402. 

Dependents,  ratio  to  breadwinners, 
126?i.  191. 

Devon,  Lord,  his  commission  on  the 
condition  of  Ireland,  370. 

Diffusion  theory  of  taxation,  160,  316-8. 

4  '  Diminishing  Returns"  in  agriculture, 
law  of,  chap.  v.  :  does  not  apply  to 
mechanical  industry,  98;  affecting 
wages,  150. 

Distribution  of  wealth  defined,  4  ;  il- 
lustrated, 5,  6  ;  in  treating  thf»  ques- 
tions of  distribution  we  have  to  do 
with  industrial  classes,  not  func- 
tions, 7  ;  the  problem  of  distribution, 
chap.  x.  ;  deemed  by  Chevalier  less 
important  and  difficult  than  the 
problem  of  production,  156. 

Distributed  exchanged  for  undistri- 
buted wealth,  the  effect  on  wages, 
219-223. 

Division  of  labor  always  a  source  of 
mechanical  advantage,  90,  95  ;  up  to  a 
certain  point  tends  to  increase  agri- 
cultural wages,  147-9. 

Ducarre,  M.,  tiala-ires  et  Rapports 
entre  Ouvriers  et  Patrons  (1875), 
87,  187  n.,  274,  309n.,  341  n.,  394n. 

Dupin,  M.  ,  his  researches  into  French 
industry,  47. 

u  Dusty  Trades,"  mortality  of,  36. 

Dwellings,  laborers',  often  unfit  for 
habitation,  61-4  ;  effects  of  unsani- 
tary and  inadequate  habitation  on 
the  moral  elements  of  industry,  86  ; 
proportional  expenditure  of  different 
classes  on  lodging,  117. 

Earnings,    extra,    in   trades,   24,   25  ; 

harvest,  in  agriculture,  26  n. 
Eden,  Sir  F.  M.,  Hi$lory<f  the  Poor, 


Education,  influence  on  efficiency  ot 
labor,  05-7  ;  relative  expenditure 
of  different  classes,  for,  117?t.;  loss 
of  wages  involved  in,  123. 

Edward  III.,  industrial  legislation  oi 
his  reign,  304,  305,  307,  379. 


420 


INDEX. 


Edward  IV.,  law  against  truck,  326. 
Edward  VI.,  pauper  legislation,  307, 

o30. 

Bgerton,  H.  B.  M.  Consvil,  inefficiency 
of  Russian  labor,  44  ;  irregularity  of 
factory  attendance,  48 ;  feebleness 
of  the  industrial  desires  of  the  Rus- 
sian peasantry,  127/i.;  no  factory 
legislation  in  Russia,  362  ;  strikes  in 
Russia,  396  ;  "  artels,"  403. 

Elizabeth,  Qaeen,  industrial  legislation 
of  her  reign,  306,  307,  320. 

Emigration  of  artisans  from  Great  Bri- 
tain forbidden  by  law  prior  to  1824, 
307. 

Employers  of  labor  sometimes  working 
at  their  trades,  or  personally  super- 
vising the  laborers,  10  ;  the  sense  of 
their  self-interest  not  always  suffi- 
cient, 59,  60,  164  ;  profits  their  ob- 
ject in  production,  129,  130 ;  em- 
ployers a  distinct  industrial  class, 

227,  228  ;  not  necessarily  capitalists, 

228,  229  ;  under  imperfect  competi- 
tion employers  are  not  the  guardians 

^  of  the  laborers'  interests,  239,  240, 
358  ;  the  employer  the  master  of  the 
situation,  290,  291 ;  incapable  em- 
ployers live  at  the  expense  of  the 
laboring  class,  254-6 ;  employers 
stimulated  by  increased  competition 
on  the  side  of  the  laboring  class, 
256-8  ;  paid  in  some  degree  in  honor 
and  social  distinction,  259  ;  said  by 
Adam  Smith  to  be  always  in  combi- 
nation to  lower  wages,  393. 

Employing  class,  the,  chap.  xiv.  ;  to 
be  distinguished  from  the  capitalist 
class,  244,  245 ;  a  false  employing 
class,  247-50  ;  characteristics  of  the 
true  employing  class,  251,  252  ;  this 
class  in  Switzerland,  259,  260  ;  it  is 
the  object  of  co-operation  to  get  rid 
of  the  employing  class,  262-8 ;  has 
either  the  employed  or  employing 
^class  an  economical  advantage  over 
the  other  ?  chap.  xvL 

Employed,  the,  none  others  belong  to 
the  wages  class,  206,  207 ;  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  employed  and 
the  non-employed  the  greatest  struc- 
tural fact  of  industrial  society,  221. 

Employment,,  the  question  of,  is  the 

true  wages  question,   269,  270,  290, 

.291 ;     regularity    of,  affecting    real 

wages,  26-33 ;  continuity  -of,  the  em- 

„  ployers'  interest  in,  300-2. 

England,  payment  of  agricultural 
wages,  20 ;  duration  of  laboring 
power,  34,  35 ;  efficiency  of  labor  j 
^compared  with  that  of  India,  42  ;  of 
various  European  countries,  43-6 ; 
north  and  south  of  England,  relative 
efficiency  of  labor  of,  47  ;  statistics 
of  height  and  weight,  50,  51 ;  food  • 


of  laborers,  54 ;  degradation  of  thar 
laboring  population,  how  effected,! 
82-4;  food  habits  of  the  people, 
118,  120,  124n  •  ratio  of  breadwin- 
ners to  dependents,  126?*.;  rise  of 
the  wages-fund  doctrine,  140 ;  the 
peasantry  divorced  from  the  soil 
208,  211  n.\  effect  on  agriculture  ot 
the  repeal  of  the  corn  laws,  258 ; 
co-operation  in  England,  272,  273, 
282,  28t5,  287 ;  laws  iu  restraint  of  la- 
bor, 304-9  ;  poor  laws,  319-24  ;  mar- 
riage statistics,  356,  381n.;  factory 
laws,  359,  360 ;  rents  influenced  by 
public  opinion,  367;  legislation 
against  strikes  and  combinations, 
892,  393 ;  friendly  societies,  403. 

Engel,  Dr.,  relative  expenditure  of 
families  on  food,  clothing,  etc.,  116, 
117. 

Entrepreneur,  the,  (see  Employing 
Class). 

Erie,  Sir  Wm.,  the  1'aw  of  strikes, 
393 ;  report  of  his  commission  on 
Trade  Unions,  399,  406. 

Exchange  of  Wealth  defined,  4 ;  illus- 
trated, 5,  6. 

Exchange  of  distributed  for  undis- 
tributed wealth,  its  effect  on  wages, 
6,  219,  220. 

Factory  legislation  in  England  op- 
posed by  political  economists,  162 ; 
its  economical  justification,  167, 175; 
its  history  in  Europe,  356-62. 

Faithfull,  Miss,  public  opinion  un- 
friendly to  female  labor,  384. 

Famine,  restricting  population,  111, 
112;  periodical  in  India,  118n.;  Irish 
famine  of  1846-7,  121. 

Farmer,  the  American,  5,  9,  227. 

Fashion,  changes  in,  working  import- 
ant effects  on  industry,  178-179. 

Fawcett,  Henry,  Political  lilconomy 
(McMillan,  186d),the  Allotment  sys- 
tem, 25w.;  food  of  the  laborers  of 
the  West  of  England,  56;  wages  are 
to  be  increased  at  the  expense  of 
^profits,  57rc.,  233,  234;  equivalency 
of  subsistence  and  wages,  133w. ; 
differences  in  local  wages  in  England, 
187 ;  transfer  of  labor  from  agricul- 
ture to  manufactures,  204 ;  co-opera- 
tion in  agriculture,  281;  strikes  some- 
times successful,  389.  The  Econom- 
ic Position  of  the  British  Laborer, 
laboring  class  insufficiently  clothed, 
58;  statement  of  the  wage-fund 
doctrine,  139;  Speeches }  truck,  336; 
opposition  to  the  extension  of  female 
labor,  377.  378 n. ;  Daily  News,  con- 
dition of  agricultural  laborers  near 
Salisbury,  346. 

Ff  rench,  Mr. ,  higgling  in  Spanish  retail 
trade,  3 


INDEX. 


"Fellows,  J.  testimony  respecting 
truck,  331*i. 

Finlaison,  A.  G.,  statistics  of  loss  of 
time  by  sickness,  2Sw.;  discovers 
error  of  British  Government  in  sale 
of  annuities,  400,  401. 

Finnie,  Mr.  comparison  of  American 
Negro  and  East  Indian  laborer,  4:2n. 

Fii.  Theodore,  Lcs  Glasses  Ouvri&rcs. 
Mining  accidents  rare  in  France, 
3~m.;  ill-success  of  strikes,  388. 

Food,  in  its  relation  to  laboring  force, 
53-8 ;  relative  expenditure  of  dif- 
ferent classes  for,  117«..;  habits  in 
respect  to,  of  various  nations,  118-24; 
is  cheap  food  desirable?  121-4. 

France,  payment  of  agricultural  wages 
in,  20  ;  of  mechanical  wages,  21 ;  du- 
ration of  the  laboring  power  of  the 
population,  84,  35 ;  efficiency  of  la- 
bor compared  with  other  countries, 
43,  44,  46;  North  and  South  of, 
varying  efficiency  of  labor,  47 ;  sta- 
tistics of  height  and  weight,  51 ;  food 
of  the  laboring  population,  54  ;  town 
and  country  rents,  118??-.;  speech-dif- 
ferences among  population,  175ra.; 
proportion  of  foreigners,  184 ;  peas- 
ant proprietorship  general,  209; 
frugality  of  the  peasantry,  235 ;  co- 
operation in  France,  274,  282,  287 ; 
comparative  freedom  of  industry, 
309  ;  taxation  under  the  old  regime, 
317 ;  marriage  statistics,  356 ;  factory 
legislation,  360,  361 ;  laws  against 
strikes  and  combinations,  394,  395 ; 
friendly  societies,  402. 

Francis,  Sir  P. ,  good  work  not  appre- 
ciated in  Turkey,  60n. 

Fraser,  Mr.,  economy  of  woman's 
labor,  381. 

Free- Traders,  distinguished  from  the 
"Manchester"  school,  161,  162. 

Frugality,  amongst  Irish  in  America, 
124 ;  proportionately  greater  among 
laborers  than  among  employers,  235; 
not  encouraged  by  large  and  sudden 
rise  of  wages,  236;  encouraged  by 
co-operation,  271,  272;  giving  the 
wages  class  an  advantage  in  compe- 
tition for  the  product  of  industry, 
345-8 

Gairdner,  Prof,  unsanitary  condition 
of  Glasgow,  61. 

Gallatin,  Albert,  the  industrial  free- 
dom of  the  United  States,  181  n. 

Gangs,  agricultural,   in  Bugland,  201. 

Gardeners,  longevity  of,  37,  401a. 

Gamier,  Jos.,  Traite  d*  Economic  Poli- 
tique,  34/i. 

Geometrical  increase  of  population, 
102. 

George  III.,  industrial  legislation  of 
his  reign,  306,  320,  359,  593,  391. 


George  IV.,  industrial  legislation  of 
his  reign,  394. 

Germany,  payment  of  agricultural 
wages  in,  20 :  industrial  code  re- 
quires payment  of  mechanics'  wagea 
in  money,  21 ;  food  habits  of  people, 
118;  peasant  proprietorship  general, 
209  ;  co-operation  in  Germany,  274, 
287;  restrictions  on  industry,  309; 
factory  legislation,  360 ;  strikes, 
395. 

Germans  easily  adapting  themselves 
to  the  ways  of  other  people,  187 n. 

Gibbon,  29w.,    257. 

Gilbert's  act  (English  Poor  Law),  320, 
321. 

Gleaning  of  fields,  in  part  payment  of 
wages,  22. 

Girdlestone,  Canon,  the  agricultural 
laborers  of  England,  38;  food  of 
Devon  peasant,  56  ;  unsanitary  con- 
dition of  dwellings  in  Devonshire,  61. 

Golta,  Th.  Frh,  von  der,  Die  Lage 
derLandlichenArbeiter  im  Deutschen 
Jteich,  20 

Gould,  H.  B.  M.  Consul ;  efficiency  of 
Swiss  factory  labor,  44w.  ;  loss  of 
wages  by  school  attendance,  123 ; 
industrial  desires  of  the  Swiss 
peasantry,  I27n.  ;  character  of  Swiss 
employers,  259,  260  ;  co-operation  in 
Switzerland,  274,  282. 

Grattan,  Consul,  intemperance  in 
Belgium,  78rc. 

Great  Britain,  consumption  of  liquors, 
349;  savings  bank  statistics,  350; 
friendly  societies,  403. 

Greece,  holidays  in,  29 ;  efficiency  of 
laborers,  44?i. 

Greek  Church,  holidays  in,  29. 

Greenhow,  Dr.,  the  effects  on  health 
of  dry-grinding  the  metals,  36  :  the 
heat  in  copper  mines,  88?i. 

Greg,  W.    R,   Social  Enigmas,   103. 

Guilds,  predecessors  of  the  modern 
Trades  Unions,  228  ;  remains  of,  in 
Europe,  309 ;  their  benelicial  influ- 
ence, 405. 

Hallam,  Henry,  Constitutional llistoi*y 

of  England,  369ra. 
Haines,   W.   P.,   married    women   in 

factories,  383?i. 
Harmonies,   the  Economic,  160,  197, 

220,  231,  240,  316. 
Harrison,  Frederick,  183,   272,  277»., 

279n.,  291  n. 
Hastings,   Geo.   W.,    facility  of  the 

poor  in  becoming  paupers,  3-4. 
Head,  Mr. ,  statistics  of  retail  trading, 

285. 
Hearn,  Prof.  Philology,   27,  67,  76. 

195,  196,  246. 
Heath,  Mr.,  English  Peasantry,  21  * 

23,24. 


INDEX. 


Henry  VI,  industrial  legislation  of 

his  reign,  392. 
Henry  VIII.,  industrial  legislation  of 

his  reign,  320 
Herries,   Mr.,   payment  of  wages  in 

Italy,  2 1 ;  co-operation,  283 ;  factory 

legislation,      362;      strikes,     396; 

friendly  societies,  4C3. 
Hindoos,  loss  of  time  by  holidays,  29  ; 

inefficiency  of  labor,  42. 
Hirt,  Dr. ,  Krarikheiten  der  Arbeiter, 

36. 

Holidays,  loss  of  time  by,  29 ;    pre- 
scribed by  factory  legislation,  360, 

361. 
Holmes,  H.  B.  M.  Consul,  good  work 

not  appreciated  in  Bosnia,  60?i. 
Holyoake,  George  J.,  extent  of  waste 

in    production,   4Sra;  co-operation, 

286.. 

Hopefulness  in  labor,  72-7. 
Hopper,  R.  W.,  strikes  never  success- 
ful, 388. 
Horner,  L.,  Employment  of  Children 

in  Factories,  167,  360. 
Hours  of  labor,  167,  168,  359-63 
Hungary,  the  nobles  of,  freeing  their 

serfs,  74,  75 ;  taxation  under  the  old 

regime,  318. 
Hunter,  Dr.,  Famine  Aspects  of  India, 

111,  112. 
Huskisson,  Mr.,  free  trade  in    labor, 


Immigrants  into  the  United  States, 
accidents  of  their  location,  181-3 ; 
into  France,  Macedonia,  and  Corsica, 
187n.  • 

Improvements,  unexhausted,  in  agri- 
culture, 281ri. 

Jjadia,  efficiency  of  labor  in,  42  46 ; 
ineffective  machinery  employed,  67  ; 
famines,  112;  food  habits  of  the 
people,  118;  immobility  of  the  pop- 
ulation, 177. 

Industry,  manufacturing,  incessant 
movement  of,  178. 

Tnglis,  H.,24,  61,  76. 

Insurance,  Life,  is  expensive  and  fails 
to  reach  the  working  classes, 

,'    401. 

Intelligence,  a  factor  of  the  laborer's 
efficiency  in  production,  65-7  ;  in- 
fluences the  distribution  of  the  pro- 
duct, 352-4, 


Ireland,  the  pig  formerly  paying  the 
rent,  24 ;  duration  of  the  laboring 
power  in,  34,  35  ;  inefficiency  of  laboi 
before  the  famine,  43,  45,  46 ;  sta- 
tistics of  height  and  weight,  50 ;  food 
of  the  laboring  population,  55 ;  un- 
sanitary condition  of  dwellings,  61 ; 
proverbial  indolence  of  the  popula- 
tion accounted  for,  76;  the  famine 
of  1846-7,  111 ;  food  habits  of  the 
people,  118  ;  tenure  of  the  soil,  213  ; 
relations  between  landlord  and  ten- 
ant influencing  rents,  368-7. 

Irish,  in  America,  their  frugality,  124  ; 
their  accidental  location,  182;  in 
England,  jealousy  of,  176n;  their 
early  marriages  at  home  and  abroad. 
355. 

Italy,  payment  of  wages  in  sulphur- 
mining,  21  ;  peasant  proprietorship 
increasing,  209 ;  public  sentiment 
protects  the  cultivator,  21ln\ 
co-operation,  282;  factory  legislation, 
362 ;  rents  influenced  by  public 
opinion,  368  ;  strikes,  396 ;  friendly 
societies,  403. 

Jarvis,  Edward,  cost  of  rearing  chil- 
dren to  be  charged  against  their 
wages,  33w.,  34w. 

Jefferson,  Th.,  the  paper  money  of  tho 
American  revolution,  16. 

Johnson,  Dr. ,  eggs  and  pence  in  the 
Highlands,  17. 

Johnston,  Prof.,  Notes  on  North  Amer- 
ica, 92  n. 

Jones,  Richard,  Political  Economy,  43, 
125».,  208,  211».,  21 3w.,  215,  217. 

Justices  of  the  peace  (England),  em- 
powered to  fix  the  rates  of  wages, 
306  ;  must  be  landed  proprietors,  366. 

Kane,  Dr.,  Industrial  Resources  of 
Ireland,  43,  79,  80. 

Kennedy,  John,  manufacturing  im- 
provements stimulated  by  industrial 
distresses,  257. 

Kennedy,  J.  G.,  strikes  in  Belgium, 
395. 

Labor,  often  performed  by  the  person 
who  supplies  capital  in  production, 
8 ;  mobility  of  labor  essential  to  com- 
petition, 163  ;  can  labor  be  accumu- 
lated and  saved  ?  292-4. 


Intemperance  lowers  the  efficiency  of    Labor,  cost  of,  real  distinguished  from 


labor,  78,  87;  the  great  foe  to  fru- 
gality, 349,  350. 

Interest,  the  term  used  in  this  treatise 
only  of  sums  paid  for  capital  actual- 
ly loaned,  225,  226 ;  is  interest  at 
the  minimum  ?  234. 

Inventions  constitute  an  economical 
reason  for  increase  of  wages, 
146,  147. 


nominal,  40  ;  efficiency  of,  causes  of 
^lifterences  in  the,  chap.  iii. ;  in  con- 
nection wibh  natural  agents  deter- 
mines the  amount  that  can  be  paid 
in  wages,  131. 

Labor-power,  its  durat'on  an  element 
in  determining  wages,  33,  402  ;  cost 
of  rearing  children  to  age  to  labor. 
33,34, 


INDEX. 


428 


Labor  question,  not  identical  with  the 
wages  question,  206. 

Laborers,  the  several  classes  of,  9 ;  the 
statute  of,  305,  392. 

Laing,  Samuel,  Notes  of  a  Traveller, 
71 ;  Denmark  and  the  Duchies,  309 ; 
Tour  in  Sweden,  310. 

Laissez  Faire,  a  practical  rule,  not  a 
principle  of  universal  application, 
162,  168 ;  applied  to  truck,  336 ;  to 
factory  legislation,  357-9  ;  to  strikes 
and  trades  unions,  385,  386. 

Lamport,  Charles,  effect  of  unsanitary 
conditions  upon  life  and  laboring 
power,  65/i. 

Land,  tenure  of,  in  different  countries, 
207-13. 

Laveleye,  E.  de.,  the  orthodox  political 
economy,  155. 

Lecky,  History  of  nationalism  in  Eu- 
rope, 29ra.,  405/1. 

Legal  profession,  duration  of  life  in, 
37. 

Legislation  in  aid  of  labor,  168-73, 
356-62 ;  in  restraint  of  labor,  302-9. 

Leighton,  Sir  B.,  concession  of  Cow- 
land,  24. 

Leslie,  T.  E.  Cliffe,  Land  Systems  of 
Ireland  and  the  Continent,  213/t. 

Lsvi,  Leone,  estimated  number  of 
working  days  in  the  year,  31. 

Liquors,  consumption  of,  in  Great 
Britain,  349,  350. 

Lock-outs  affecting  the  regularity  of 
employment,  30. 

Locock,  Mr. ,  food  of  the  laboring  pop- 
ulation of  the  Netherlands,  56/z. ; 
strikes,  395. 

Longe,  P.  D.,  Refutation  of  the  Wage 
Fund,  etc.,  I32n. 

Lytton,  Mr.,  cooperation  in  Austria, 
288 ;  the  corporation  system,  310. 

Macadam,  Dr.  S.,  analyses  of  drink- 
ing water,  65. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  History  of  England, 
369,  370. 

Macedonia,  its  winter  population  aug- 
mented by  immigration,  187/1. 

Mahon,  Lord,  History  of  England, 
41. 

Machinery,   waste  of,   with  ignorant 

-r    1ahnr1  67;   disturbances  introduced 

by  machinery  into  labor,  178,  189. 

Malet,  Mr.,  factory  legislation  in 
France,  361. 

Malthusianism,  chap,  vi.,  cf.    p.  857. 

Manchester  School  of  Political  Econ- 
omy, 161,  162,  336. 

"  Manchester  Unity,"  the,  its  financial 
condition,  400. 

Mansfield,  Lord,  the  incidence  of  taxa- 
tion, 316». 

Martineau,  H.,  History  of  England, 
30,  176?i.,  822. 


Marriage,  procrastination  of,  354,  355; 
statistics  of  age  at  marriage,  356; 
effects  of  recent  social  causes  in 
diminishing  marriage,  381. 

Massachusetts  Colony,  industrial  legis- 
lation of,  305,  306,  327. 

Maurice  (and  Tallon),  Legislation  sur 
le  Travail  des  Eni'ants,  361. 

McCuDoch,  J.  R.  Political  Economy, 
105,  109rc.,  120/1.,  121w.;  Commer- 
cial Dictionary,  350/1. 

McDonnell,  Survey  of  Political 
Economy,  282. 

Medical  profession,  duration  of  life  in 
the,  37. 

Metayer  tenancy,  211,  212. 

Mill,  James,  Political  Economy,  144/1* 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  Political  Economy 
(Little  &  Brown,  1848),  the  allot- 
ment system,  25w. ;  influence  of  the 
imagination  in  economics,  77n.;  the 
degradation  of  the  English  laboring 
population,  82n.,  83n.;  "diminish- 
ing returns"  in  agriculture,  96/i.; 
working-classes  as  consumers  of 
manufactured  goods,  1'35.M  ;  the 
wage  fund  doctrine,  143".;  tiie  law 
of  international  values,  196,  197 ; 
co-operation,  282  ;  the  office  of  cus- 
tom, 311,  313,  314 ;  small  means 
produce  no  effect  in  elevating  a  peo- 
ple, 345w. ;  effect  on  wages  of  the 
ownership  of  property  by  the  wages 
class,  348 ;  women  as  artisans,  379 ; 
Some  Unsettled  Questions  of  Politi- 
cal Economy,  the  economic  man, 
174,  175 ;  The  Fortnightly  Review, 
wage  fund  doctrine,  139,  140. 

Mining,  accidents  in,  to  be  considered 
in  computing  the  wages  paid,  36n.; 
Bulphur,inltaly,paymentof  wages,21. 

Mobility  of  labor  essential  to  competi- 
tion, 163 ;  actual  mobility  of  labor, 
chap,  xi.;  interference  by  law  with, 
307-9 ;  (see  chaps,  xviii.,  xix. ,  pas- 
sim}] diminished  in  the  case  of  wo- 
men by  physiological  causes,  and  by 
their  failure  to  receive  the  support 
of  public  opinion,  377-8. 

Money,  the  purchase-power  of,  affect- 
ing nominal  wages,  13. 

Morris,  O'Connor,  religious  differ- 
ences in  Ireland,  369?t. 

Muggeridge,  Mr. ,  immobility  of  Eng- 
lish labor,  185  ;  testimony  respect- 
ing frame-rents,  334,  335. 

Mulholland,  John,  comparative  cost 
of  clothing  from  cotton  and  from 
flax,  122n. 

Mundella,  A.  J.,  superior  efficiency  of 
North  of  England  laborers,  47. 

Napier  and  Ettrick,  Lord,  intellectual 
relations  of  England  and  America, 
142n. 


434 


INDEX. 


Nationality,  affecting  the  efficiency  of 
labor,  43-6. 

44  Necessary  Wages,"  the  doctrine  of, 
chap,  vii 

Neison,  Dr.,  statistics  of  mortality  in 
various  trades,  37. 

Netherlands,  the  food  of  the  laboring 
population  of,  56 ;  habits  respecting 
dwellings,  118ft. ;  proportion  of  for- 
eigners, 184;  marriage  statistics, 
356 ;  absence  of  factory  legislation, 
362 ;  strikes  but  little  known,  395 ; 
trade  clubs,  402. 

New  England,  food  habits  of  the  peo- 
ple, 133,  124. 

Newmarch,  Win.,  factory  legislation, 
359. 

Newman,  F.  W.,  lectures  on  Political 
Economy,  158;i. 

Nicholls,  Sir  George,  History  of  the 
English  Poor  Laws,  321. 

Nominal  distinguished  from  real 
wages,  12 ;  causes  which  produce  the 
divergence,  13  et  seq. 

Nominal  distinguished  from  real  cost 
of  labor,  40 ;  causes  which  produce 
the  divergence,  41  et  seq. 

Normandie,  M.,  report  on  savings 
banks  in  Europe,  350. 

Northcote,  Sir  Stafford,  real  distin- 
guished from  nominal  wages,  38,  39. 

Norway,  marriage  statistics,  356: 
strikes,  396. 

Norwegians  in  the  United  States,  182. 

Occupation,  change  of,  frequent  ne- 
cessity for,  178 ;  Adam  Smith's  view, 
192,  193  ;  Prof.  Cairnes'  view,  193  ; 
his  theory  of  "  Non-Competing 
Groups,"  195-202  ;change  of  occupa- 
tion formerly  forbidden  or  restricted 
by  law  in  England,  306,  307 ;  women, 
by  37  Edward  HI.,  allowed  to  inter- 
change trades, 379ft. ;  access  to  trades 
restricted  by  "union"  regulations, 
403,  404. 

Ollivier,  M.,  the  act  (France)  of  May 
25,  1864,  394. 

Opinion,  public,  influential  in  deter- 
mining wages,  362-69 ;  in  determin- 
ing rents,  369-72. 

Organization  of  industry  conducing 
to  efficiency,  67-72. 

Painting,  house,  irregularity  of  em- 
ployment in,  28,  32. 

Pakenham,  Mr.,  the  food  of  Belgian 
laborers,  56ft. 

Palgrave,  Consul,  good  work  not  ap- 
preciated in  Anatolia,  60n. 

Palmer,  C.  M.,  the  removal  of  labor- 
ers, 346. 

Paper  money,  changes  in  circulation 
affecting  nominal  wages,  14 ;  of  the 
American  Revolution,  16;  fluctua- 


tions in  paper  money  placing  tht 
wages  class  at  a  disadvantage,  310-3. 

Parsimony  of  employers  opposed  to 
true  economy,  58,  59,  164. 

Payment  of  wages,  variety  in  form  of, 
19 ;  payments  in  kind,  324-7. 

Paupers  in  England  in  1833  better  fed 
than  independent  laborers,  57;  labor- 
ers, once  become  paupers,  seldom 
recover  tone,  88;  English  laws  of 
pauper  settlement,  308,  309. 

Peasant  proprietorship  of  land,  5,  9, 
207-9,  243. 

Pennant,  Th.,  Tour  in  Scotland,  324. 

Perry,  A.  L.,  Political  Economy,  138, 
139, 143 ;  The  Financier,  81,  82,  253. 

Peto,  Sir  M.,  testimony  respecting 
truck,  329. 

Petre,  Mr.,  payment  of  agricultural 
wages  in  Prussia,  20ft. ;  the  practice 
of  "wandering"  in  manual  trades  in 
Germany,  187ft. 

Phipps,  Mr.,  married  women  but  littlo 
employed  in  factories  in  Wurtem- 
berg,  383ft. 

Piece-work,  how  to  compute  the  wages 
of,  13ft. 

Pig,  permission  to  keep,  23 ;  formerly 
paying  the  rent  in  Ireland,  24. 

Political  Economy,  the  orthodox,  155  • 
the  d  priori  school,  175. 

Poor  Laws.  English,  308,  309 ;  effect 
on  wage  labor,  819-22. 

Population,  Malthus'  law  of,  chap,  vi 

Porter,  G.  R.,  The  Progress  of  the 
Nation,  12 ;  Statistical  Journal,  350. 

Potato,  the,  its  use  as  the  sole  article 
of  food,  121-4. 

Poverty  the  curse  of  the  poor,  166. 

Prices  and  Wages.  13 ;  differences  in 
local  prices  introduce  great  complex- 
ity into  computations  of  wages,  17. 

Production  furnishes  the  measure  of 
wages,  chap,  viii.;  continuity  of, 
the  employer's  interest  in,  298,  299. 

Profits,  certain  classes  of  laborers  paid 
from  profits,  not  from  revenue,  9 ; 
profits,  the  object  in  giving  employ- 
ment, 128-80,  291;  the  expectation 
of  profits  the  test  of  wage  labor,  216, 
the  term  made  by  some  economists 
to  include  the  wages  of  supervision 
and  management,  10 ;  in  this  treatise 
it  signifies  the  gains  of  the  employer, 
aside  from  the  returns  of  capital,  230 ; 
are  excessive  profits  restored  to 
wages?  237-9;  are  profits  at  the 
minimum  ?  252-61 ;  rates  of  profit, 
268. 

"Protective"  Tariffs  supported  by  ar- 
guments which  confound  wages 
and  the  cost  of  labor,  41. 

Prussia,  relative  expenditure  of  differ- 
ent classes  for  food,  clothing,  etc., 
117w.;  factory  legislation,  360,  361; 


INDEX. 


425 


women  in  agriculture,  380w.;  strikes, 
395  w.;  trades  unions  and  friendly 
societies,  402. 

Purely,  Fred'k,  payment  of  wages  in 
Wales,  20n.;  in  England,  2ln.;  har- 
vest wages  in  Ireland,  26». ;  irregu- 
larity of  agricultural  wages,  27/i.; 
substitution  of  corn-meal  for  the 
potato  in  Ireland,  J20w.;  difference 
in  local  agricultural  wages,  186/1.; 
division  of  the  annual  product  of  land 
in  England,  269fl,.;  cider  and  beer 
payments  in  English  agriculture, 
327 ;  women  in  agriculture,  380ft. 

Quarrying,  irregularity  of  employment 

in,  28. 
Quetelet,  A.,  statistics  of  height  and 

weight,  50,  51. 

Real,  distinguished  from  nominal 
wages,  12. 

Real,  distinguished  from  nominal  cost 
of  labor,  40. 

Rent,  in  part  payment  of  wages,  21 : 
Ricardo's  theory  of  rent,  224,  225 ; 
the  term  only  used  in  this  treatise 
of  sums  paid  tor  land  actually  leased, 
225,  226 ;  rates  of  rent  influenced 
greatly  by  public  opinion,  367-72 ; 
rental  of  machines,  332-5 

Report  (House  of  Commons),  Employ- 
ment of  women  and  children  in  agri- 
culture, 20».,  22,  24,  47,  52,  53,  72, 
176n.;  201,  202,  382«.;  Friendly  So- 
cieties (1874),  403;  Railway  laborers 
(1846),  176,  329  ;  Poor  Law  Com- 
missioners (1831),  3^2n.;  (1832), 
322w.;  (1833),  57,  86??,.;  (1842),  34,  37, 
62,  64,  85 ;  stoppage  of  wages,  1867 ; 
Payment  of  Wages  Bill  (1854),  21rc.; 
255re.,  256?*.,  329;  to  Local  Govern- 
ment Board  (1873),  52,  69,  378n. 

Respect  and  sympathy  for  labor,  influ- 
ential in  determining  wages,  362-72  ; 
wanting  in  the  case  of  women  as  la- 
borers, 883,  384. 

Retail  trade,  failure  of  competition 
in,  311-5. 

Returns  of  capital,  the  term  how  used 
in  this  treatise,  225,  231,  232. 

Revenue,  certain  classes  of  laborers 
paid  from  the  revenue  of  their  em- 
ployer, and  not  from  profits,  9. 

Ricardo,  David,  his  theory  of  rent, 
2:24n. ;  definition  of  the  banking  func- 
tion, 228. 

Richard  II.  (England),  industrial 
legislation  of  his  reign,  305,  307 ; 
insurrection  of  the  serfs,  390. 

Rickards,  Prof.,  the  doctrine  of  Mai- 
thus,  195. 

Riesbach,  Baron,  habits  respecting 
dress  of  North  and  South  Germans, 
117. 


Rogers,  J.  E.  ThoroH,  Political  Econ* 
omy,  66;  increased  productiveness 
of  English  agriculture,  93ra.  ;  cheap 
food  undesirable,  121 ;  effects  of 
fashion  on  manufacturing  industry, 
179n.  ;  popular  tenure  of  the  soil, 
211  w.  ;  profits— interest,  231w.,  233  ; 
co-operation  defined,  267n.  ;  the 
English  law  of  pauper  settlement, 
308  ;  competition  in  retail  trade,  315; 
frugality  of  Cumberland  and  West- 
moreland peasantry,  347;  rents  in 
England,  368 ;  the  condition  of  the 
Irish  peasantry  before  the  famine, 
370w.  ;  History  of  Agriculture  anA 
Prices  in  England,  freedom  of  labor 
movement,  13th  to  15th  century, 
187w.  ;  peasantry  divorced  from  the 
soil,  222,  223 ;  industrial  legislation 
following  the  Black  Death,  304  ;  wo- 
men in  trades,  379  ;  the  servile  insur- 
rection, 390 ;  Cobdcn  and  Political 
Opinion,  the  incidence  of  taxation, 
316;  rents  in  England  influenced  by 
public  opinion,  367;  Notes  to  Adam 
/Smith' 's  Wealth  of  Nations,  317. 

Rose,  Edwin,  superiority  of  English 
labor,  43,  68. 

Rumford,  Count,  Essays,  166n. 

Russia,  holidays  in,  29;  inefficiency 
of  labor,  43  ;  irregularity  in  factory 
attendance,  48n.  ;  feebleness  of  the 
industrial  desires  of  the  peasantry, 
127/1.  ;  mobility  of  the  laboring 
population,  180  ;  peasant  proprietor- 
ship increasing,  209 ;  savings  banks 
statistics,  350ra.  ;  absence  of  factory 
legislation,  362;  value  of  serf  a 
before  emancipation,  373 ;  women 
in  agriculture,  379w.  ;  strikes,  396 ; 
"  artels,  "403. 

Ryot  tenancy,  9,  212. 

Salary  or  stipend  class,  not  wage- 
laborers,  215,  247,  296?i. 

Sanitary  Commission  of  the  U.  S., 
/Statistical  Memoirs,  51. 

Savings  banks  statistics,  347,  349, 
350. 

Say,  J.  B.,166, 167w. 

Scotland,  payment  of  agricultural 
wages  in,  20 ;  efficiency  of  labor,  47 ; 
statistics  of  height,  50 ;  former 
indolence  of  the  population,  76 ; 
food  habits  of  the  people,  118, 
I20n. ;  speech  differences  among  the 
population  affecting  the  mobility 
of  labor,  175n. ;  proportion  of  bread- 
winners to  dependents,  191;  tenure 
of  laud,  208  ;  marriage  statistics,  356, 
881  rc.  ;  women  in  agriculture,  381  n. 

Scott,  H.  B.  M.  Consul,  expenditures 
of  different  classes  in  Wurtcmburg, 
I18n. ;  women  in  manufacturing 
industry,  383n. 


428 


INDEX. 


Sedgwick,  T.,  Political  Economy,  5. 

Senior,  Nassau  W.,  Political  Economy. 
4,  9ft.,  43,  97,  104,  124n.,  125*.,  184, 
185,  268/?..,  269/1.  356rc.  ;  Lectures  on 

^  Wag^s,  25,  26 ;  Foreign  Poor  Laws. 
323. 

Settlement,   English  law  of  pauper, 

Sexual  restraint,  influence  on  wages, 

354-6. 

Shaftesbury,   Earl  of,   laborers'  cot- 
tages, 23. 
Shares,  laborers  hired  on,  not  properly 

wage-laborers,  214. 
Sickness,  loss  of  time  by,  an  element 

in    determining    real    wages,    28; 

statistics  of,  66 ;  friendly  societies 

insuring  against,  399,  402. 
Simon,  Jules,  L'Otwridre,  380/i. 
Sismondi,  land  the  true  savings  bank, 

348;     public    opinion    influencing 

rents  in  Italy,  3(38. 
Slavery,    the  master's    interest   not 

preventing  abuse  or  neglect,  59. 
Slave  labor,  always  ineffective,  73,  74. 
"Sliding     Scale,"     in     wages,     270, 

Smith,  Adam,  Wealth  of  Nations 
(Rogers'  edition),  ineffectiveness  of 
slave  labor,  73;  wages  the  encour- 
agement of  industry,  80 ;  habits  of 
various  nations  respecting  clothing, 
124?i.  ;  proportion  of  bread-winners 
to  dependents,  125/i.  ;  the  immobility 
of  labor,  18o ;  changes  of  occupation, 
192 ;  the  salary  or  stipend  class,  215, 
316;  the  ordinary  rate  of  profit, 
268/1. ;  combination  of  masters  to 
lower  wages,  393. 

Smith,  Angus,  carbonic  acid  gas  in 
mines,  37. 

Smith,  E.  Peshine,  Political  Economy. 
58,  141. 

Smith,  George,  excessive  labor  of 
children  in  brickyards,  52. 

Social  Science  Transactions,  1864, 286 ; 
1865,  37,  48;  1886,  23,  61  ;  1867,  55, 
65,  122«.  ;  1808,  47 ;  1869,  38,  39 ; 
1870,53,65;  1871,  274,  324;  1872, 
24,  142».,2£5;  1874  202. 

Southern  States  (U.  S.),  payment  of 
agricultural  wages  in,  20. 

Spain,  higgling  in  retail  trade,  315/1 ; 
absence  of  factory  legislation, 
362. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  Principles  of  Biol- 
ogy, 259rc. 

Spender,  Edward,  cider  truck  in  Eng- 
land, 337. 

Spinsters,  proportional  number  in 
England  and  Scotland,  381n. 

Bpital fields,  the  condition  of  the  pop- 
ulation, 85 

Btanhope,  Edward,  laborers'  cottages, 
22n. 


Statistical  Journal,  rii.,  350;  rs. 
184;  xxii.,  350;  xxiii.,  375;  xxiv., 
20,  21,  30,  178,  186/1,  187n,  WT. 
359;  xxv.,  26/i.,  33 n. ;  xxvi.  122n.  ; 
xxvii.,  33/i.,  327;  xxviii.,  48,  72, 
178,  185,  257,  353  ;  xxx.,  388. 

"  Statute  of  laborers,"  305,  392. 

Strachey,  Mr., Germans  easily  adapting 
themselves  to  the  v/ays  of  other 
peoples,  187/z..  ;  cooperation  in  Den- 
mark, 287,  2$9 ;  restrictions  on  in- 
dustry removed  in  Denmark,  309 ; 
strikes,  396  ;  trade  clubs,  40*. 

Strikes,  loss  of  time  by,  30 ;  dura- 
tion of,  31 ;  cooperation  would  abol- 
ish, 271 ;  when  strikes  may  be  re- 
garded as  unsuccessful,  298/i.";  strikes 
against  the  labor  of  women,  B7Sn.  ; 
the  possible  utility  of  strikes  often 
decided  against,  on  grounds  of  the 
wage  fund,  385,  386  ;  on  the 
ground  that  they  always  fail,  388, 
is  this  conclusive  ?  389  ;  strikes  are 
the  insurrections  of  labor ;  may  be 
justified  by  ultimate  results,  390-392 ; 
legislation  against  strikes  in  Eng- 
land, 393  ;  in  Europe,  395,  396. 

Stuart,  Consul,  holidays  in  the  Eastern 
church,  29/i. ;  lack  of  machinery 
in  Epirus,  67. 

Subsistence,  tends  to  increase  more 
slowly  than  population,  102-5;  the 
condition  precedent  of  production, 
132,  133. 

Sweden,  duration  of  the  laboring 
power  in,  34,  35  ;  marriage  statistics 
356,  factory  legislation,  362. 

Swedes  in  the  United  States, 
183. 

Switzerland,  efficiency  of  labor  in, 
45/i.  ;  industrial  desires  of  the  peas- 
antry, 127/i. ;  character  of  the  em- 
ploying class  259,  300  ;  cooperation, 
274,  283  ;  savings  banks  statistics, 
350 ;  division  of  landed  property 
351,  factory  legislation,  361. 

Sykes-,  Col.,  the  dwellings  of  Lanca- 
shire, 61. 

Sympathy,  public,  influential  in  de- 
termining wages,  36:3-9  ;  in  deter- 
mining rents,  369-73  ;  wanting  in 
the  case  of  women  as  laborers.  383, 
384. 

Talion  and  Maurice,  Legislation  snr  le 
Travail  des  Enfants,  361. 

Taylor,  H.  B.  M.  Consul,  Eastern  mar- 
rjage  customs,  116. 

Taylor,  W.  C.,  married  women  in 
factories  in  England,  383n. 

Taxation,  under  perfect  competition, 
is  diffused  equitably,  1 60  ;  under  im- 
perfect competition  the  wages  class 
may  be  put  at  disad  vantage  by  its 
incidence,  315-18. 


INDEX. 


427 


Thompson,  Mr.,  superiority  of  English 
labor,  69. 

Thompson,  J.,  Perronet,  food  habits 
of  the  Irish  and  the  English,  USn. 

Thornton,  Over-Population,  25n.  • 
On  Labor,  50ra,  279  w,  293-5. 

Tory  Party,  of  England,  influence  in 
favor  of  early  marriages,  356??,. 

Trades  Unions,  not  to  be  condemned 
simply  because  they  are  restrictive, 
172 ;  their  economical  nature,  396  ; 
as  friendly  societies,  399. 

["ruck-payments  make  it  difficult  to 
compute  real  wages,  20 ;  truck  de- 
fined and  described,  824-7 ;  English 
legislation  respecting,  327  ;  reasons 
for  truck,  328,  329  ;  profits  of,  330, 
331 ;  abuses  of,  831,  332 ;  economical 
nature  of,  335-344;  controlled  by 
public  opinion,  367w. 

Tuffnell,  Carleton,  inefficient  labor  not 
wanted  at  any  price,  49w. 

Turkey,  holidays  in,  29;  good  work 
not  appreciated,  60 /i. ;  marriage 
customs,  116. 

United  States,  difficulty  of  computing 
real  wages,  19  ;  payment  of  agricul- 
tural wages,  20 ;  agricultural  wages 
prior  to  1850,  paid  largely  in  kind, 
21 ;  duration  of  the  laboring  power, 
34,  35;  statistics  of  height  and 
weight,  51  ;  food  habits  of  the  peo- 
ple, 123,  124 ;  ratio  of  breadwinners 
to  dependents,  I2('m.  ;  wages  paid 
directly  out  of  the  product  of  labor, 
135,  l-!6 ;  prevalence  of  the  wage 
fund  doctrine  explained,  140-42  ;  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  laborers 
bringing  increase  of  wages,  149 ; 
Chinese  in  the  United  States,  176; 
mobility  of  the  laboring  population, 
180,  181;  foreigners  in  the  United 
States,  181,  183  ;  tenure  of  the  land, 
227 ;  cooperation,  228 ;  great  ex- 
tension of  retail  trading  1860-70, 
313;  savings  banks  statistics,  351, 
352 ;  early  marriages,  355 ;  great 
irregularity  in  the  distribution  of 
female  industries,  375 ;  women  in 
agriculture,  380n. ;  women  in  manu- 
factures, 382,  3S3. 

Vauban,  Marshal,  loss  of  time  by  holi- 
days, 29. 

Veth'ake,  H..  Political  Economy,  141. 

Victoria,  industrial  legislation  of  her 
reign,  360. 

Villermfi,  M.,  statistics  of  height  and 
weight,  50,  51 ;  excessive  labor  of 
children,  167,  168. 

Wages  affected  by  the  «xchange  of 
di  stributed  for  undistributed  wealth, 
6,  266 ;  made  by  some  economists  to 


include  the  remnncTation  of  five 
classes  of  laborers,  10 ;  nomi- 
nal distinguished  from  real  wages, 
12  (chap,  ii.);  distinguished  from 
cost  of  labor,  40;  measured  by  the 
product  of  industry,  chap.  viii.  ; 
affected  by  causes  which  influence 
the  efficiency  of  labor,  145 ;  by  in- 
ventions and  improvements,  146, 
147 ;  large  and  sudden  rise  of,  not 
promotive  of  frugality,  235 ;  laws 
fixing  wages,  304-6 ;  wages  of  wo- 
men, 372-384. 

Wages-class,  chap.  xii. ;  has  either 
the  wages  or  the  employing  class  an 
advantage  over  the  other  ?  chap, 
xvi. ;  how  the  wages  class  may  be 
put  at  disadvantage  in  competition 
with  employers,  chap.  xvii. ;  what 
may  help  them  in  competition,  chap, 
xviii. ;  may  any  advantage  be 
given  them  through  strikes  or  trades 
unions  ?  chap.  xix. 

Wage-laborers  less  industrious  than 
those  working  on  their  own  account, 
75-7  ;  less  frugal,  271,  272. 

Wage-fund,  the  doctrine  of,  chap, 
ix. ;  stated,  138-40 ;  its  prevalence 
accounted  for,  143  ;  refuted,  144-50; 
made  use  of  by  some  economists  to 
settle  the  question  of  strikes,  385. 
386. 

Wales,  payment  of  agricultural  wages, 
20n. 

Welsh  in  the  United  States,  183. 

Walker  Amasa,  Science  of  Wealth, 
14174.,  231/1. 

Walsnam,  Mr.,  employment  of  chil- 
dren in  factories  in  the  Nether- 
lands, 362. 

Ward,  J.,  Workmen  and  Wages, 
T3n.,  389??,.,  395,  396,  402. 

Waste,  an  element  in  all  work,  48,  66; 
encouraged  by  excessive  profits,  257, 
258. 

Watts,  John,  loss  of  time  by  strikes, 
30. 

Water,  impurity  of,  affecting  the 
efficiency  of  labor,  60,  65. 

Wayland  Francis,  Political  Economy, 
141?*. 

Wells,  David  A.,  Reports  on  U.  S. 
Revenue,  44«.,  45n. 

Wheeler,  Mr.,  Cotton  Cultivation, 
42??,.,  67. 

Whewell,  Dr.,  the  economic  man,  175. 

White,  J.  E. ,  steel  dust  in  needle  fac- 
tories, 32 ;  excessive  labor  of  chil- 
dren in  factories,  53,  53,  201,  202. 

Whitworth,  Sir  Jos.,  false  economy  of 
employing  cheap  labor,  4ln.  ;  of 
underfexding,  58?i.  ;  discipline  an 
element  of  efficiency,  98ra. 

William  IV.,  industrial  legislation  of 
his  reign,  322,  327,  328,  360. 


423 


INDEX. 


Winthrop,  Governor,  History  of  New 
England,  240,  241,  342. 

Wolowski,  M.,  restrictions  on  the 
labor  of  children,  358%. 

Women,  irregularity  in  the  employ- 
ment of,  in  agriculture,  33 ;  work 
unstated  to  their  sex,  52;  their 
wages  inadequate  to  their  service, 
372,  373 ;  have  especial  need  to 
move  to  the  labor  market,  375,  376 ; 
but  are  peculiarly  disabled  therein, 
376-8  ;  by  actual  obstruction  on  the 
part  of  men,  377,  378;  by  lack  of 
public  sympathy  and  support,  379 ; 
their  n«ed  tc  enter  the  labor  market 


comparatively  modern,  379-81 ;  th« 
supposed  necessity  often  not  a  real 
one,  381 ;  loss  and  waste  in  the 
family  by  reason  of  the  absence  of 
the  wife  and  daughter,  382, 
883. 

Workhouse  test  for  able-bodied  pau- 
pers, 370-4. 

Wiirtemburg,  expenditures  of  different 
classes,  HSn.  ;  married  women  in 
factories,  383w. 

Young,  Arthur,  Travels  in  Ireland,  43. 
76,  183,  339,  368,  369,  380n. ;  Travel* 
in  France,  75,  227. 


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